There’s Plenty of Spin Before the Puck Drops

“A Whole New Game,” huh?

Let’s see: There was the NHL, back on ESPN on Friday, just like old times, even if the feed had to be imported like a prescription drug from Canada.

Commissioner Gary Bettman spent too much time on the screen, promising immediate and exciting rule changes that would supposedly enliven and open up the sport, then bowed his head and began opening up envelopes.

NHL insiders considered this edge-of-the-seat stuff. Casual fans wanted to know why all 30 teams qualified for the big event.

When everything had been played out, the Kings were 11th and the Ducks were in the finals, where they lost, to a team from the East.

Isn’t this the same NHL we knew and left behind when the owners shut down the Zambonis in the fall of 2004?

Major league hockey was back on the air, even though there was not a puck or a rink in sight, just “a world of balls,” as Canada-based TSN reporter James Duthie opted to describe Friday’s pingpong-ball madness, a.k.a. the “NHL 2005 Entry Draft Lottery,” a.k.a. “The Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes,” a.k.a. “Hope & Crosby.”

Crosby, the two-time Canadian Major Junior Hockey League player of the year, was the prize all 30 teams coveted, a 17-year-old who amassed 168 points in 62 games last season and has been hyped as The Kid Who Would Save Hockey From Itself.

All 30 teams participated in the lottery, almost like how it is in the playoffs.

The Ducks advanced further than anyone had reason to expect, unless you believe in great conspiracy theories, and what NHL fan doesn’t?

Hmm, the Ducks and the Pittsburgh Penguins, down to the final envelope.

Wouldn’t the league love to place Crosby on the West Coast, in the very important Southern California market, sliding a new star into the vacuum created by the departures of Wayne Gretzky, Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya?

Wouldn’t the league want to reward new Duck General Manager Brian Burke for a year of lip service, when he dutifully spouted the company line whenever he was hooked to his old TSN microphone?

And isn’t this how Bettman learned it was done when he worked for David Stern in the NBA?

Then again, the Penguins are in dire straits, and Mario Lemieux is much beloved around the league, and right now he needs all the help he can get.

So Crosby is headed to Pittsburgh, where he will try to take advantage of the league’s new menu of rules designed to increase scoring, such as the removal of the center line and the reduction of the goaltenders’ padding, a.k.a. “The Jiggy Rule,” another tough break for the Ducks and goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

In addition to these changes, Bettman announced the league would make players more accessible on game telecasts to make the sport more television-friendly. In theory, this sounds like a move in the right direction. Now all Bettman needs to do is find a way to put these games on national television and he’s set.

For a day, anyway, the NHL was back on ESPN. It was less than enthralling. But you know what the NHL called it? A start.

Available for viewing this weekend:

TODAY

* Dodgers at New York Mets

(Channel 11, 12:15 p.m.)

Mike Piazza, Dodgers reunite, reminisce about better times.

* New York Yankees at Angels

(FSNW, 7 p.m.)

Once, this used to feel like a Yankee home game played in Orange County, back when the undermanned local team was still known as the Anaheim Angels of Anaheim, when the stadium used to crawl with transplanted New Yorkers and/or front-runners. Now, the big crowds turn out mainly to see how far Vladimir Guerrero will hit his next home run and whether the Angels can gain a psychological edge over the Yankees for a possible matchup in October. Things have changed so much, the bandwagon jumpers don’t know where to leap.

* AVP Nissan Series Hermosa Beach Open

(Channel 4, 1:30 p.m.)

Then again, if you’re interested in watching a sport with an Olympic future, there’s beach volleyball.

SUNDAY

* Tour de France, Stage 21

(Outdoor Life Network, 4:30 a.m.; Channel 2, 11 a.m., tape)

Lance’s Last Lap, they are calling it. The end of the road. The end of an era. The last of Lance Armstrong’s Magnificent Seven rides, one more time onto the coronation streets of Paris and then off into the sunset.

Armstrong has done all the hard work, but he hasn’t been churning alone. Consider everyone who has tagged along and ridden this run for all it’s worth.

OLN, through Wednesday, reported a ratings gain of 31% over 2004. The Discovery Channel, new sponsors of Armstrong’s U.S. team, has actually been discovered. The cycling industry has found new converts and customers. Barking-idiot sports-talk shows have gorged themselves on fodder based on the ludicrous proposition that Armstrong isn’t really that great an athlete because how hard is it to ride a bike?

Unless any drug rumor is proven, Armstrong’s streak of seven consecutive Tour de France titles rates as the ultimate athletic accomplishment of our generation.

As he put it to Associated Press, “An individual can never dictate their legacy. That’s not my job. Whatever the people decide it is, it is. I’m a kid from Texas who learned how to ride and overcame a life-threatening illness to come back and win the hardest sporting event in the world. I’ll let others write on the tombstone.”