The NHL’s General Managers recently wrapped up three days worth of meetings in Boca Raton, Florida, at which rule changes and other innovations to improve the game were suggested. Here at PITB, we were a little surprised to hear about Mike Gillis’s proposal, an initiative to outlaw hand-passing in the defensive zone.
It makes sense when you think about it, but the fact that the suggestion came from Mike Gillis, General Manager of the Vancouver Canucks, was strange. If anyone in the NHL was to suffer from this rule, it would be defensive specialist Manny Malhotra, who wins a great deal of faceoffs in his own zone by way of the hand pass. Why was Mike Gillis trying to spoil Manny Malhotra’s party?
As it turns out, it wasn’t solely about Malhotra. Gillis was trying to bring down the entire Canucks’ system from the inside — to bury his group in a sea of red tape and rule changes. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. But, considering Gillis continues to employ Alain Vigneault, despite the Canucks having only the second-best record in the Western Conference, it’s obvious he’s setting this group up to fail.
And now we have further proof. PITB has produced a very real, super authentic and totally not made up at all transcript of Gillis’s time on the floor, and Canuck fans should be thanking their lucky stars that most of these ideas were vetoed outright. What follows are 11 alarming excerpts from Mike Gillis’s speech:
- “It’s the year 2012. Scientists have already successfully cloned a sheep, and humans can’t be far behind. I submit to you that it’s already being done in secret. There is no doubt in my mind that somewhere, someone is raising a crop of Sidney Crosbies. Do we want the NHL overrun by clones? No thank you, which is why I think we should make a rule that no team is allowed to employ two players who look identical to one another.”
- Nothing stratifies the league like lopsided trades. The steady outflow of talent from the Florida Panthers organization in particular is noxious to parity. Thus, all trades with that franchise should henceforth be deemed illegal.
- I can’t be the only one that’s noticed the Canucks play with much more offensive firepower when they’re trying to come back from down two goals, which is why I propose that they start all games with this deficit.”
- “I want to promote rules that push the play forward. This is why I am suggesting that we outlaw drop passes, especially on the powerplay. This ain’t rugby.”
- “After consulting a Swedish-to-English dictionary, it turns out ‘Sedin’ actually is Swedish for ‘punch me or headlock me in a scrum.’ So let’s make that okay.”
- “In the spirit of diversity, no one line can be made up solely of players from the same country.”
- “As a former player agent, I’m well-versed in how competitive and taxing the business of hockey can be for the players. As such, I propose we simplify the way we go about dealing with these issues by creating one superagent who will represent all NHLPA members. I nominate Ritch Winter.”
- “No Edlers.”
- “I don’t have to tell you all how late our games end in the East. In the spirit of fairness to you fine Easterners, let us mandate that puck drop for all West Coast games take place at 8am Pacific standard time.”
- “Nothing ends a good offensive chance quite like when a player falls down in the offensive zone. Let’s make this a minor penalty.”
- “And finally, my assistant GM, Laurence Gilman, has created a 60-page document outlining all the exploitable loopholes in the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. We would like to share it with you in the hopes of closing each one.”
s/t to Thomas Drance for his help with this post.
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Bob
March 21, 2012What’s the point of this? It’s not funny. It’s not informative. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.
The Bookie
March 21, 2012I see you’re new to the internet…
Cody
March 21, 2012Of course reading all the way to the end of the useless waste of time was a good use of time because this way you can take the time to comment on it appropriately.
Bob
March 22, 2012I stand corrected. Apparently there are enough simpletons out there to make living writing this tripe. How fortunate for you.
I (heart) Cooperalls
March 22, 2012Are you talking about the author of the article, or the authors of the comments?
I’d sincerely like to know if commenters get paid for this tripe.
the real bob
March 21, 2012i’d rather have 12 sedins, they can pass to each other blindfolded and are all out for blood
Brent
March 21, 2012Hey Mayor, that was Awesome! Ville you do more like this?
Harrison Mooney
March 21, 2012Ha. That took me a second. Funny guy.
Brent
March 21, 2012I like to think so, but my wife disagrees.
Jacob
March 21, 2012“No Edlers”. Hilarious, but surely we learned in the Simpsons Stonecutters episode that “no edlerS” means they’re allowed to have one.
Cody
March 21, 2012we must have been writing this at the same time… now i’m sad
TubaNat
March 21, 2012Haha, and I was coming down here to write the same thing – great minds clearly had similar watching patterns growing up…
Harrison Mooney
March 21, 2012This entire generation communicates via Simpsons references. It’s remarkable, really.
sarah
March 21, 2012I made a hilarious Simpson’s reference today that my 20-year old coworker didn’t get. I went to the washroom and had a quick cry and rally.
Rituro
March 22, 2012You need new co-workers. Or, you need to make Seasons 3-9 mandatory viewing during new employee orientation.
sarah
March 22, 2012Good point. It really is unreasonable to expect me to not refer to a lawyer as the “law talking guy”…right?
Jacob
March 22, 2012It truly is the best of times and the blurst of times. Ok, I’m done.
Cody
March 21, 2012No edlers means we can still have one!
Jason
March 22, 2012In the spirit of being redundant, I had the same no Edlers thought process.
I (heart) Cooperalls
March 22, 2012No “Edlers” just means that we can’t have more than one…