Anna's Thoughts (07/16/25)
Folks, it’s time for another “Anna’s Thoughts,” where I just share a few thoughts I’ve had about hockey recently.
NHL opening night
Well, we know who will be playing on the NHL’s opening night. The matchups are:
Coughing baby vs. Hydrogen bomb (5 pm EDT)
Future home of Gavin McKenna vs. Mid (8 pm EDT)
Makar vs. Off-season losers (10:30 pm EDT)
Ok, ok, here’s what they really are:
Chicago vs. Florida (5 pm EDT)
Pittsburgh vs. New York Rangers (8 pm EDT)
Colorado vs. Los Angeles (10:30 pm EDT)
Seriously, what are we supposed to be excited about? These matchups suck. Opening night should be a night when you schedule your strongest matches. After all, it’s great for marketing to have great matchups on opening night. Unfortunately, though, the NHL did do this for marketing reasons. They think putting out big names is more important than good games. I’m sorry, but Chicago vs. Florida is a TERRIBLE matchup. I know what the NHL was thinking, though. They were thinking “Connor Bedard vs. the Stanley Cup champions! That’s ratings gold.” Is it, though? Are people really going to tune in for what everyone is expecting to be an uncompetitive game? Well, they’re probably banking on hockey fans being too starved for hockey to not watch and hoping that Bedard vs. Tkachuk will be enough to get non-fans or casual fans to care. It’s probably not going to work, but good job galaxy braining it, NHL. Pittsburgh vs. New York is an uninteresting matchup because, at best, both teams will be mediocre. That said, it’s more likely Pittsburgh is in the McKenna sweepstakes while New York flounders in mediocrity. Once again, I know what the NHL was thinking, “Crosby vs. Panarin in our largest market! Ratings gold!” Now, to be fair, this actually probably will be ratings gold, but not because it’s a good matchup. The third matchup, ugh. We get to watch MacKinnon embarrass Cody Ceci. This is one where they thought to themselves, “It’s Makar and MacKinnon vs. no stars we actually market in our second largest market! Ratings gold!” Yeah, this probably won’t be. It’ll be those two fan bases watching along and probably not too many others, especially because it’ll be so late on the East Coast. Seriously, who on the East Coast, unless they’re a fan of one of those two teams, is staying up for this matchup?
The thing is, this should be a night where the league puts its best foot forward. That would be the best marketing they could come up with. Do you know what the lineup would be if I were doing it?
Washington vs. Carolina (5 pm EDT)
Edmonton vs. Florida (8 pm EDT)
Colorado vs. Vegas (10:30 pm EDT)
The first matchup is Ovechkin, in his final season, up against the winners of the Nikolaj Ehlers sweepstakes and everyone’s favorite annual fake Stanley Cup contender. It’ll be a good match of two good teams with actual stars that are marketable. For the second matchup, I moved the Stanley Cup winners to primetime. I’m sorry, but starting the season with the Stanley Cup winners is a bad move. Have the banner unveiling on primetime. You know, when people are more likely to actually see it instead of when they’re at work or coming home from work at 5 pm. Screw tradition, go for ratings. Furthermore, can you imagine the hype there would be if it were a Stanley Cup rematch and McDavid and company had the chance to ruin the Cup celebration? Everyone would be watching. That’s ratings gold. Finally, I’m Colorado in the final matchup because, well, Makar and MacKinnon. But, I’m swapping out Los Angeles for the team that won the Mitch Marner sweepstakes. I mean, come on! The marketing writes itself! Plus, they’re rivals! How could you not be excited for this matchup? People on the East Coast might actually stay up for this one. I genuinely do not understand why this is so hard for the NHL.
European League Coverage
Ok, this is more of a quick note than anything. So, in the last few years, frankly, I stretched myself too far in European hockey coverage and always burned out hard. This year, I’ll be limiting it to the Champions Hockey League, SHL, Liiga, and KHL. Besides, CHL is the big tournament, and the other three are the three big leagues in Europe. These are probably the only leagues people outside of Europe would care about, anyway. So, I just wanted to make a mention of that.
The PWHL Needs to Take a Stand on Trans Inclusion NOW
There was a rather alarming article in The Guardian yesterday about how transphobes are targeting the NWSL and US Soccer to make them transphobic. Why do they feel emboldened to go after these two organizations? Because neither has a policy on trans athletes. Since transphobes will stop at nothing to ensure trans people are eradicated, they must ensure that trans people are welcome nowhere. So, they’re now pressuring the NWSL and US Soccer to explicitly ban trans athletes. Why am I talking about soccer? Because this won’t stop at soccer. They will target the PWHL soon enough. Why? Because they refuse to release a policy on whether trans people are included or not. Eventually, they will be forced to. Frankly, the fact that they currently don’t allow trans athletes due to not having an inclusion policy, but claiming to be working on one, speaks volumes. They don’t want to include trans athletes. They want to appear inclusive without actually being inclusive. They want points for being progressive without actually being progressive. This is another way in which the PWHL is less progressive than the PHF. The PWHL is making its stance known, but refuses to openly state it out of fear of backlash. Well, guess what? The transphobes, who care nothing about the PWHL, are coming. They’re going to force you to take a stand. So, to those leading the PWHL, are you going to keep your progressive fanbase, or are you going to give us all the middle finger and sink your league? You'd better choose one now. Understand, you’re not going to replace your progressive fans with conservative ones. Conservatives think all these women belong in the kitchen, not on the ice rink. So, take a stand, cowards.
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