Junior Hockey Weirdness

If you happen to go to Pointstreak.com to look up information on USHL players this year, you might notice something missing. The USHL has made the decision to not post the birthdate of players on the Pointstreak site for "security reasons". It's an especially strange decision since the majority of USHL teams still have that information posted on their website.

The NAHL, under new commissioner Eric Krupka may not be turning a profit, or producing superstar prospects, but they are creating comedy gold. Here's a question. What do these two quotes have in common?

"Some teams aren't run right, they're in the wrong market. For example, Santa Fe is not a market that's going to work for hockey."

"The Roadrunners are one of the league's best franchises with an owner who has sacrificed a lot to keep the players together," Krupka wrote. "I have known Mary Magdelene-Lorang for awhile now and as Commissioner of the North American Hockey League, I will help her in anyway possible. The Roadrunners have my full support and they will remain in the NAHL for a long time to come."

(Quotes courtesy of Junior Hockey Blog)

If you said, "They were said by the same person," give yourself a pat on the back. Both those comments were said by commissioner Eric Krupka, albeit about a week apart. Krupka is a fairly big guy, so it's impressive that he can backpedal that quickly.

This situation has disaster written all over it. The original interview where Krupka basically hung Santa Fe out to dry was quickly pulled from the NAHL's website, but the toothpaste was out of the tube by that point. The NAHL is desperately in need of someone to promote their league. You do that by accentuating the positives and downplaying the negatives. Not pointing out the negatives and then forcing yourself into a corner by making a dumb promise about keeping Santa Fe around as a franchise.

It would have been fine to let Santa Fe's team ride off into the sunset after this year, because hockey hasn't exactly caught on there. Instead, Krupka brought a lot of attention to a less-than-positive situation in his league, and compounded that error by promising to keep them around. That's probably not the start that the new commish was hoping for.