Aliens have invaded. They have enslaved us. Shackled at the hands and feet, Glorbac has summoned me to teach Earth’s new rulers about our customs and practices. I’m pale and sickly — not because I have been held in an underground prison for years, but because this is how I always look — as I am seated across from Glorbac.
Glorbac: David, tell me, conqueror of Earth, captain of the Senarion army, ruler of Zebway Galaxy, about this custom known as hockey.
Dave: Call me Dave. Well, hockey was this sport played on frozen sheets of ice, which of course no longer exists after your Senarion army boiled the planet with your heat weapons. It was played by people all over the globe and loved by millions.
Glorbac: So what is this NHL?
Dave: Oh, it was a league everyone hated.
Glorbac: But people loved hockey?
Dave: Oh yeah.
Glorbac: But hated the NHL?
Dave: That’s right, Glorby.
Glorbac: Don’t call me Glorby. I have read through the annals of your hockey and much of it confuses me. I attempted to learn its ways through this NHL.com, but myself and my people’s leading scientists could not navigate it.
Dave: Tell me about it.
Glorbac: Why is it so hard to find a story I’m looking for? Why are there only a handful of scores at the top of the homepage on nights when there are 10 games? Who picks those games? And what happened to the box scores? And why is there no dropdown for game previews? How does anyone playing daily fantasy traverse this site to find line combinations off morning skates? And what of—
Dave: Glorby, what was your question?
Glorbac: Oh, right. In this NHL that existed for a century, did this league not give preferential treatment to its older, retired players? And did it not speak with great reverence about honoring these former combatants and warriors and demand its younger players always pay tribute to these legends?
Dave: Sure. They named trophies and awards after those old guys.
Glorbac: Exactly. I learned much of this Conn Smythe because of the modern trophy that I recently melted down to make tiny swords for my children to torture what you called your “YouTube stars.”
Dave: Yeah, old people always wanted to make sure the young people learned about the old people. That’s why that Top 100 list they did was so loaded with older people. As a matter fact, me and two other people wrote a book called —
Glorbac: Ugh, you and that book. Enough already. It’s over. But respecting history was important to old hockey types?
Dave: Sure was.
Glorbac: But these old hockey types were mad that this Josh Ho-Sang wore number 66 on his war sweater because this Mario Lemieux also wore the sweater?
Dave: You bet. And we just call them sweaters.
Glorbac: Explain to Glorbac this conflict in philosophy.
Dave: Glorbo, do you have stupid motherfuckers on your planet?
Glorbac: On Senario, we had people that believed it was OK to stand still on the left side of the thermoculator that took us to our spaceships on morning commutes. Hey, Flarnficker, get out of the way! Glorbac needs to get to work so if you’re going to stand still, get on the right side of the thermoculator and let Glorbac pass!
Dave: Exactly. Our Flarnfickers were sports fans that always looked for a reason to be angry. You see, Ho-Sang spoke with great reverence and respect for Lemieux and said that wearing the number was a tribute to a player he grew up admiring, and that was why he wore the number. It happened all the time in hockey with all kinds of numbers, but never 69. No one ever wore 69. You see, in our culture, 69 was…actually, forget it. But even though Ho-Sang was doing all the things hockey’s gatekeepers said young players should do, he was still vilified for wearing the number.
Glorbac: Glorbac still confused. Did players wear numbers of great players in other sports?
Dave: Yep.
Glorbac: And nobody cared?
Dave: Not really.
Glorbac: Was Lemieux the first person to wear this number?
Dave: No. Actually, a guy named Milan Novy of the Washington Capitals wore 66 in 1983-84, two years before Lemieux wore it in Pittsburgh. Sadly, people were unable to time travel to 1984 to make Novy feel bad about wearing the number of a guy who wasn’t in the NHL yet.
Glorbac: We have that technology.
Dave: Please don’t share it on HF Boards.
Glorbac: Is this why the NHL wasn’t popular?
Dave: It didn’t help, Glorbs.
Glorbac: Let’s talk about expansion.
Dave: [laugh-coughs blood on Glorbac] Oh, sorry.
Glorbac: Are you OK?
Dave: There’s not much of a medical plan in the prison and I’ve been breathing charred air for years and my skin has been really dry this season what with all the fallout from the nuclear weapons Trump launched and a thing I want to bring up while I’m here is an air purifier for my cell that could—
Glorbac: [chops off Dave’s right arm]
Dave: OK, so expansion. What about it?
Glorbac: Did it work?
Dave: Well, not really. Kinda. But not really.
Glorbac: Explain, human.
Dave: OK, so a bunch of those teams that were created in the 1990s or later didn’t do great.
Glorbac: Ah yes, on our planet, that was the Friends Era.
Dave: Same here. But Atlanta, Arizona, and Florida weren’t really successes. Others were middling at best.
Glorbac: Again, Glorbac confused. So if those places were bad for hockey, why Vegas?
Dave: Honestly, no one knows.
Glorbac: And once you expand to Vegas — by the way, my son loves it there, can’t get enough of the roller coaster — why did the NHL not make the expansion draft’s protected lists available in 2017 for fans to see?
Dave: What do you mean?
Glorbac: With Atlanta and Arizona failing and Florida a mess before we destroyed it during the initial invasion — again, very sorry about blowing up that Jagr fella, but we didn’t think he’d be in that casino at 4 a.m. on Tuesday — why wouldn’t the NHL do everything possible to give Vegas a chance to succeed?
Dave: I don’t follow.
Glorbac: Dave, Vegas was the least traditional non-traditional hockey market possible. Protected lists were due June 17 and the expansion draft was June 21, so why not make the list of available players available for fans to see right away so the league and new team could get some publicity and buzz for three days during a time when no one is talking about hockey? They could make it an event. They could make that money stuff your planet’s people loved so much.
Dave: This spot where you lopped off my arm is starting to hurt.
Glorbac: [chops off Dave’s left arm] Explain to Glorbac now!
Dave: OK. In other sports leagues on Earth, the league did everything for the fans and with them in mind.
Glorbac: Sure, they were your paying customers.
Dave: Precisely. In the NHL, decisions were made to protect the general managers or owners or players or all three. Not revealing the protected lists was good for GMs and players and bad for fans. So as is the case in those situations, the NHL sided against fans.
Glorbac: Is this why the NHL was 42nd-most popular league when we invaded in 2033?
Dave: Yes.
Glorbac: And why there were only six teams left in the league?
Dave: Yes.
Glorbac: This was very enlightening. I have decided to let you live so you could tell me next week why the league took All-Star voting rights from its fans in 2019.
Dave: Can you regrow my arms?
Glorbac: Yes, but only after we watch these 30 hours of video of Pierre McGuire talking about college and junior hockey.
Dave: This is the first time I’ve disliked your invasion.
