Don Cherry makes the NHL, an otherwise unexciting and increasingly unpopular league, interesting. For those who don’t know who Cherry is, he is a former Boston Bruins coach who then went on to lead Hockey Night in Cananda for 25+ years. To the non-hockey buff (ie most viewers), Cherry is known more for his sense of fashion… and I use fashion loosely because his outfits are enough to make Craig Segar blush and the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy crew vomit in angst.

So of course I had to put together a slideshow of Cherry’s ‘top’ outfits… and if I am spending time on the NHL *AND* Microsoft Powerpoint, you know I feel strongly about this:

The NHL is looking for any gimmick to make people pay attention to their sport. The favorite one lately has been staging big outdoor games, apparently in an attempt to engender a football atmosphere.

The outdoor game bit, including New Year’s Day’s Winter Classic in Buffalo, has been so successful that now the New York Rangers want in on the action. The team is reportedly in negotiations to stage such an event at Yankee Stadium next season.

“It’s something we’ve spoken both to the yankees and to the city about,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said, “but it’s not a done deal. There are still other possibilities and a lot of moving pieces.”

The biggest moving piece is Yankee Stadium itself, which is set to close up in 2009, as the Yanks move to their shiny new billion-dollar complex across the street. The Yanks were reportedly reluctant to allow a hockey rink to be set up in their stadium due to possible damage to the field, but obviously that won’t be an issue after they move out.

But wait a second…if the NHL stages a game there after the Yankees leave, that would mean the last sporting event held in the Babe and DiMaggio and Mickey’s house would be something other than a baseball game. I don’t know if I’m cool with that. The Yankees should close Yankee Stadium, not the Rangers and Bruins or whoever else they played.

The last sounds to echo through Yankee Stadium should be the crack of bats on balls, not the whack of sticks on pucks. The last chants should be for the Yanks, not the Rangers.

The final Yankee Stadium game should not be held on ice with players wearing skates. It should not involve a bunch of guys with unpronounceable Eastern European names. There shouldn’t be nets involved, and the only ones wearing goalie helmets should be catchers and umpires.

I suppose the Yankees figure a revenue opportunity is a revenue opportunity. So, if the NHL wants to fork over some dough to stage an event in the House that Ruth Built, so be it. I’m sure there will be a huge crowd. And for one day at least, hockey will matter.

Not to me, but to someone.