Aside from the fighting and maybe an occasional clip showing some amazing skill, the NHL is extremely boring to me.  It’s not that I don’t respect what these guys do for a living.  It’s not that I don’t admire the amount of toughness and effort it takes to play the sport.

But I simply don’t understand what the allure of watching guys skating across the ice for over an hour is.  Am I missing something?  It’s like soccer but a little bit better because of the fighting and players don’t go down crying all the time.

Fact is, there’s virtually no scoring and to me that makes it a problem.  Luckily I’ve come up with five solutions for the league that won’t require any tweaking with the game itself.

Have Each Ice Dancing Team Featured in Playboy

This one is a no brainer.  If the NHL selected 12 teams with the hottest ice dancers and made a deal with Hefner to post a new team in Playboy each month, I guarantee you that television ratings would go up.  I also guarantee you attendance goes up.  Sex sells, period.

Schedule Period Break UFC Fights with Players

If there’s one redeeming quality about the NHL, it’s fighting.    Take one member from each team, have a 3 minute UFC style fight in the middle of the ice at each period break.  Crowds would go nuts for this.  Embrace the violence.

Get Alec Baldwin to Announce at Least 50 Games

It just works.

Lapdances in the Penalty Box

Look, these guys are pretty lonely in there.  Might as well get a few ice dancers to keep him company.  Put it up on the Jumbotron and you’re telling me that crowd wouldn’t love that?  Since most of the game is boring anyway, gotta get the fans attention.

Little Plastic Bubble Packaging Giveaways

Again, since most of the game is boring and involves virtually no scoring.  If fans are bored they gotta think of something to do.  Why not give them those little bubbly packaging things to pop?  It would be a relatively small expense and would do wonders.