Intentional Stupidity?

For much of the summer, Yahoo!’s PuckDaddy blog has featured an ongoing series “Five Ways I’d Change the NHL”. Matt Bradley chipped in not long ago, much as he chips in goals throughout a season (shootout and otherwise).

Today, Ross McKeon threw his own ideas into the ring. We at DCO mostly remember Ross for his downright slanderous remarks on Ovie and the Caps during the All-Star Break (along with the typically expected mourning over Sid’s owie ankle ruining the entire league). This time, he takes his shot at the entire Caps organization in his very first “suggestion”. I’ll paste it here so there is no need to waste time reading the rest of his drivel:

1. Less is more: We're talking contraction here, fewer teams means better quality of play and so much more. Ding six franchises to get the league down to 24 teams (12 per conference, six in each of four divisions). Who goes? Atlanta Thrashers, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals and Nashville Predators. Hey, look at that, no more Southeast Division.

Typical cheap-shotting of the the SE division. Typical ignorance. Typical Don-Cherry-Canadian-elitist-like snobbery towards teams not possessing golden boys and/or not located in Montreal or Toronto. Sounding a little like Eric Kay from last fall, too.

The initial reaction here at DCO was, of course, a long-winded, blistering post on McKeon’s optimism-hating, Sidney-loving soul. But maybe, just maybe, he’s being stupid for stupid’s sake, making such outrageous comments as to illicit just such a reaction (he got some, too, in his comments section). It’s a pretty logical assumption, because no hockey analyst who is at all deserving of being a hockey analyst (a PAID one, too!) could possibly suggest contracting as up-and-coming a team as the Capitals. It would be the greatest, most outlandish admission of knee-jerk simplistic one-track thinking since Sidney Crosby won an ESPY for “best player in the NHL”.

So he has to be joking.

UPDATE 8/14: Ted Leonsis pens the well-thought-out response.