Each team in the NHL plays 82 regular season games, 41 games at home and 41 on the road. Teams used to play all other teams in the league at least once, but this will no longer be the case following implementation of post-lockout changes. Teams will now play 10 inter-conference (that is, not in their own conference) games throughout the entire season, 1 game against each team in two of the three divisions in the opposite conference. Teams will also play 40 games against non-divisional, conference opponents (4 games against each), and 32 games within their division (8 games against each). Two points are awarded for wins, one point for losing in overtime or a shootout, and zero points for a loss in regulation time. At the end of the regular season, the team that finishes with the most points in each division is crowned the division champion. Each Conference consists of three divisions, so these three division champions and five more teams fill out each Conference’s playoff field. In total, 16 teams (3 division champions and 5 additional teams, for a total of 8 from each Conference) qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs is an elimination tournament, where two teams battle to win a best-of-seven series in order to advance to the next round. If the score is tied at the end of the third period an overtime period is played. If the score is tied at the end of an overtime period, additional overtime periods are played until a winner is determined. Overtimes are also full periods of twenty minutes (of five-on-five hockey), rather than the five minutes (of four-on-four hockey, followed by a shootout,) in the regular season. The overtime is played with golden goal rule (sudden death) so the game ends as soon as either team scores a goal. The higher-ranked team is said to be the team with the home-ice advantage. Four of the seven games are played at this team’s home venue - the first and second, and, where necessary, the fifth and seventh, with the other games played at the lower-ranked team’s home venue.

One playoff that was contested in the NHL used the following format: the division winners were seeded one through three, and then the next five teams with the best records in the conference were seeded four through eight. However, the league has yet to announce the playoff format for the 2005-06 seasons, and with the new scheduling format that emphasizes division play, the league is reportedly exploring placing greater emphasis on division standings by taking the top 2 teams in each division, along with the teams with the next two best records for each Conference’s playoff field. In the event of a tie in points in the standings, ties are broken first by amount of wins, and then by record against the team that is tied (disregarding the first game played at the arena of the team that hosted more games than the other during the season series, if applicable). Next, the tied team with the better positive differential between goals scored for and against is given preference, and in the rare circumstance these tiebreakers are insufficient, the Commissioner has the authority to devise some other means of breaking the tie. The first round of the playoffs, or Conference Quarterfinals, consists of the first seed playing the eighth seed, the second playing the seventh, third playing the sixth, and the fourth playing the fifth. In the Conference Semifinals, the top remaining Conference seed plays against the fourth remaining seed, and the second remaining seed plays the third remaining seed. In the next round, the Conference Finals, the two remaining teams in each conference play each other, with the Conference champions proceeding to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Wayne Douglas Gretzky, OC (born January 26, 1961 in Brantford, Ontario) is a retired Canadian-American professional ice hockey player who is currently part-owner and head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes.

Nicknamed “The Great One,” Gretzky was called “the greatest player of all time” in Total Hockey: The Official Encyclopedia of the NHL. He is generally regarded as the best player in history and has been called “the greatest hockey player ever” by many sportswriters, players, and coaches. He set 40 regular-season records, 15 playoff records, six All-Star records, won four Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers, and won nine MVP awards and ten scoring titles. He is the only player ever to total over 200 points in a season (a feat that he accomplished four times in his career). In addition, he tallied over 100 points a season for 15 NHL seasons, 13 of them consecutively. He is the only player to have his number, 99, officially retired by the National Hockey League for all teams – no player in the NHL will ever again wear the number 99.

He retired from playing in 1999, becoming Executive Director for the Canadian national men’s hockey team during the 2002 Winter Olympics. He also became part owner of the Phoenix Coyotes in 2000 and following the 2004-05 NHL lockout became their head coach.

Eric Bryan Lindros (born February 28, 1973 in London, Ontario) is a retired professional ice hockey player who played 13 seasons in the National Hockey League. He was the first overall pick in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft. During his career, he captured numerous individual awards, and competed internationally for Canada at many tournaments. While in his prime, he was a premier power forward in the NHL, but he suffered from many injury problems. He retired in November of 2007, after playing the 2006-07 season with the Dallas Stars. With his imposing physical strength and playmaking ability, Lindros established himself as the top player on a Flyers team that had perennially been in contention but always fell short. His time in Philadelphia would see him score points at a phenomenal rate (for much of his first 5 seasons in the NHL, Lindros hovered around 4th all-time in points per game) and become one of the most feared players in the NHL, eventually leading the Flyers to the Stanley Cup finals in 1997 (which they lost to the Detroit Red Wings); he would also suffer frequent injuries and feud with general manager Bobby Clarke.

Along with John LeClair and Mikael Renberg he played on the dreaded “Legion of Doom” line. He scored over 40 goals in each of his first two seasons and won the Hart Trophy as MVP in the lockout-shortened season of 1995 by scoring 29 goals and 41 assists in 46 games. He led the Flyers to the Stanley Cup finals in 1997, handily defeating their three opponents along the way. The Flyers were overmatched against the Detroit Red Wings, however, and were swept in the series, with Lindros managing to score his only goal in the dying minutes of Game 4 to cut the score to 2-1. In 1998, Lindros was ranked number 54 on The Hockey News’ list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players of all time.

I think I’ve just seen another miracle on ice …

The National Hockey League is back on one of the major American broadcast networks. Some would call that a miracle in itself, but I’m taking higher ground. Specifically, I’m referring to the quality of the broadcast. It’s one of the best-produced sports programs I’ve seen.

Kudos to NBC Sports!

America is a difficult market for hockey. It may be the world’s fastest team sport and it may encompass many attributes of skill and strength that should appeal to the American fan, but many regions in the USA have little or no local influence or infrastructure of any significance for the sport. That means any national broadcast package must overcome a series of complex perception issues, not the least of which is in attracting casual sports fans to even try viewing it. Some wags contend that the only real NHL fans are only found in their arenas — explaining why the capacity percentages for NHL games are higher than in any other sport — but, as a fan myself, I consider that a lazy observation.

I will agree that, more often than not, one has to actually attend a hockey game to become a fan. Therein lies the problem with most of its television broadcast packages in the USA. To date, they have not accurately captured the essence of the game, which would offer new viewers a reason to become fans. For example, only baseball can rival hockey in aural effervescence — the sounds of sticks clapping the ice or shooting the puck, of hardened steel blades cutting ice, of the puck pinging off goal posts, of humanity crashing into each other and/or the sideboards — and usually, that means you have to be there to truly absorb the experience. Once you do, the odds are strong that you’ll be hooked on hockey, too.

This is a factor that American television networks never seemed to fathom. At least, until now. NBC’s geeks have found a way to mike the rink so the sizzle of hockey’s sounds are finely captured and the production crew has made sure that this audio element be made prominent throughout the game. The effect was absolutely visceral.

NBC’s broadcasters have a dual challenge in describing the action so as not to insult the intelligence of avid hockey fans while doing so in a manner that won’t confuse viewers new to the game. They accomplished it with aplomb, literally talking to two audiences simultaneously and seamlessly, using what’s becoming a lost art in American sportscasting: selecting their terms judiciously and sparingly.

Meanwhile, the studio broadcasters worked from a bright-but-subtle, well-designed set and deployed the same discipline. The anchor, former Philadelphia Flyer goalie Bill Clement, is often reduced to a shill when he hosts the NHL’s cable package on OLN. However, on NBC, he was excellently understated, allowing his analysts to be themselves rather than talking heads and giving each discussion point only the time it needed, letting each message sell itself to each viewer. It will be interesting to see if NBC keeps that set outside, at the skating rink adjacent to their New York headquarters. It’s the ultimate visual aid, of course, and Clement’s obvious effortless abilities on it not only allows him to more smoothly elaborate an aspect of the game, by inference the new viewer can identify with skating as an activity available to everyone.

I never thought I’d see the day when an American video production of a hockey game was actually better than its Canadian counterpart, but NBC did it. Comparatively speaking, hockey broadcasts in Europe are basic and banal, but those countries are more attuned to the game and actually seem to prefer that sort of presentation. The Canadians are rightfully viewed as being state-of-the-art when it comes to televising hockey. Any true fan will confirm that Hockey Night in Canada is a Saturday night rite of respect to a game that, on many occasions, can count 25% of that nation’s population among its audience.

And yet, the NBC production was crisper, often with more unique but very useful camera angles that provided perfect sightlines to the puck and any action around it. They integrated graphics into the action that far exceeded anything I’ve seen anywhere else. Some simple additions, such as drop-downs logging the shift time of a particular player, aid an avid fan’s awareness of unfolding team strategy while also enlightening the new viewer as to how quickly player changes occur and why. Better yet, the graphics were never obtrusive, allowing viewers to check them at their discretion (as opposed to ‘demanding’ their attention by ’scrolling’ data while action is occurring).

It’s hard to believe this came from the network that, 30 years ago, gave us the late, unlamented Peter Puck. That was the cartoon character NBC invented during their first, unsuccessful attempt to broadcast hockey. The last feature hockey needed then, or now, is a reversion to kids’ programing in the midst of a sportscast that wants to be taken more seriously by the adult American market.

It’s also good to see technology deployed in more refined terms. That wasn’t always the case. When they had the national broadcast package, Fox Network’s attempt to follow the puck with a ridiculous ‘virtual tracking path’ — derisively termed the ’sperm’ puck, as that’s the image it resembled — overshadowed the action, and combined with its morphing robot graphics presenting scores, hockey was trivialized to serving as a backdrop for ersatz video games. New viewers only remembered effects, and avid fans got tired of trying to look past all that to see if a real game happened to be in progress.

Many experts have thought that the advent of HDTV would be a boon to hockey, as the wider screen would enable more action to be portrayed. Perhaps NBC is preparing for that imminent change in broadcast standards. If so, they deserve high praise for their foresight and higher praise for their preparations. They’re making the experts look good with their predictions.

And speaking of preparations, the NHL is surely an early benefactor of NBC being the American outlet for the Winter Olympics, of which the hockey tournament is a major feature. The network is no doubt honing its cast and crew for that coverage, too. Given what they’ve already shown, hockey fans in America will be scanning their listings for NBC as opposed to any other available alternative, and sports fans in general will have no better opportunity to finally see why hockey is worth their attention.

During the 1980 Winter Games, in Lake Placid, when the USA’s team of collegians shocked the Russian juggernaut of professionals in the Upset of All Time, broadcaster Al Michaels uttered his famous, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

It’s taken 25 years, but we can believe again. Only this time, it’s the coverage. NBC has gone for hockey gold and we’re the winners.

J Square Humboldt is the featured columnist at the Longer Life website, which is dedicated to providing information, strategies, analysis and commentary designed to improve the quality of living. His page can be found at http://longerlifegroup.com/cyberiter.html and his observations are published three times per week.