the stick, the stone and the puddle

i ran across a post by the nhl on their green initiative. my initial reaction is ‘???’. the post is pure garbage and political bull-shit. it simply just seems that the green movement has truly become a must for every association, organization or political entity in order to gain support. after digging through the useless bullshit about the dying planet, changing environment and climate change one will manage to find what the nhl plans to do in order to become ‘greenet’. their biggest actions are one almost retired hockey player driving what is thought to be a green car and the nhl selling branded re-usable bag.

i wonder if bettman was drunk or on drugs when this initiative was started. this is the same man that simply won’t understand that an ice sport can’t build a strong support base in a desert. the amount of energy put to keep the ice frozen in subtropical places is enormous. it can only be kept with the help of lots and lots of energy. energy that needs to be created at the expense of our environment. but, one of the biggest stars drives an environmental friendly car…that ought to off-set all the pollution created by the ice rinks in pheonix, miami, tampa bay, carolina, etc.

how about the pollution created by all the plane travel done between games? is it really necessary to play 82 games a season? almost a game every 2 days? maybe…but with all the plane travel done, this league is light years away from becoming green. it’s hard to have a league without travel, but they can be a bit smarter about they it is done. combine travel for teams. use more efficient ways of travel (if possible).  however, i doubt the hockey stars will be subjected to any travel less than first class on a plane.

how about the 7 game series? or i shouldn’t touch this…as the hockey fanatics will point to ‘history’ and that it’s always been a 7-game series. 3 or 5 game series can result in the same outcome, with less travel..thus less pollution. less pollution from the arenas, as there’s less time spend inside (and other sources of pollution that come from the arenas will also be reduced with less games). that might also bring better effort from teams in all games, because less games make each game more important. thus, a bad effort in one game can cost a series. in a 7-game series, you can waste 3 games and still advance (i.e. 2010 philadelphia flyers).

how about all the broken sticks? there’s bound to be materials out there to make them just as flexible, but less likely to break. history of the game is brought into play when changes are not wanted, but last i recall the original sticks were make out of wood, not composite. i guess the argument ‘it’s always been this way’ fails at this one. make sticks stronger and less likely to break, will reduce waste…thus be green. i haven’t heard this from the nhl!

don’t get me wrong, being green has to start somewhere. but i for one am sick of overhearing the bullshit connected to being green, going green or any other initiatives…when they only words without proper actions. the green initiative has become a political move to get support; and with that it’s losing its importance very fast. no real actions are taken. reductions have not been done. the nhl is a far way from being green, and while it’s important to start…i wish they actually did it properly.