Good ideas come from the strangest places

It may come to little or no surprise to most of you that during my day the topic of most of my conversations is the game of hockey.  Oh I might utter a word or two on the weather or offer my two cents on how the government is screwing everybody over, but if someone at my office wants my opinion on a non-work related topic it generally involves hockey.  This kind of works in my favor as most people think I am a one dimensional puckhead and leave me alone if they want to talk about pop culture, or their kids bout with mono or whatever it is that gets other people through their day.   I am okay with flying under the radar.  It keeps me out of trouble.  It also makes you look profound when you do offer some advise or observation that people would never think would ever come from you.  However today the reverse happened to me.

A couple years ago my company hired a gentleman originally from Brazil.  When Luiz came to Canada he landed in Montreal and wanting to fit in with his new surroundings, Luiz immersed himself in Canadian culture and hockey.  Now an avid Montreal Canadiens fan, Luiz will often stop by to chat about the game.  This morning he dropped by my desk to chat about the Habs and Bruins game last night.  After a little back and forth on Montreal’s line up changes this year Luiz looked at me and said he did not understand why the NHL did not take a page out of soccer’s Champions League book.  When I asked him what he meant, he said that we all know pre-season in meaningless so why not put some meaning in it?  Canadian hockey fans often complain that the Canadian teams do not play each other enough and the last time the Stanley Cup final had 2 Canadian teams was in ’89 when the Flames met the Habs.  So why not have the 6 Canadian teams compete in some sort of tournament in the pre-season?  A kind of Challenge Cup.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when I started thinking about this tournament.  The Leafs played 9 pre-season games this year and all the other Canadian teams played on average 6 to 8 games.  That is more than enough games to hold a mini-tournament with the Canadian teams divided into two divisions, a 3 game round robin and the winners of the 2 divisions facing each other for bragging rights.  Each year the divisions could be redrawn so it is not always East vs West to avoid the same teams always playing each other.  Management could use the games to evaluate how younger players deal with a pressurized situation or a game with some meaning and fans will have reason to shuck out the bucks for tickets that cost as much as regular season games.  They can even hold the games in places like Halifax and Winnipeg so the whole country can be involved.  The idea is brilliant!

The question that remains is how do Canadian hockey fans get the NHL and the 6 teams behind this idea from a hockey fan from Brazil?  We need to make this happen

Greener \m/