Down Goes Brown's Grab Bag: The World Cup Is Going to Put an End to NHLers at the Olympics

(Editor's note: Welcome to Sean McIndoe's Friday grab bag, where he writes on a variety of NHL topics. You can follow him on Twitter.)

I spend a lot of time in this space complaining. It's kind of a thing. And if you enjoy it, don't worry, because there's plenty on the way in the next few sections.

But I don't want to be negative all the time, and so this week I'm introducing a new Grab Bag feature which I hope will become at least somewhat recurring. It's called "The NHL actually got something right" and it will highlight those rare cases where the league manages to resist the urge to flip off its own customers.

Sometimes, that will be because the NHL just decided to be smart and do the right thing. Other times, it will be because they finally listened to fans who'd been grumbling about something for years. (Remember that time we got the Department of Player Safety twitter account to start including the suspension length in their tweets? That was fun.) In either case, we'll mention them here, because being a hockey fan can't just involve whining and complaining 100 percent of the time. More like 95 percent.

So this week, let's applaud the league and its teams for what now appears to be an unmistakable trend: The awful and obnoxious "terms were not disclosed" thing finally seems to be dying.

To be clear, it's not dead yet. But this summer has made it clear that we're headed in that direction. When even Lou "If I Told You I'd Have To Kill You" Lamoriello's Toronto Maple Leafs are putting full contract details in their press releases, you know something's up. Even better, the Nashville Predators recently upgraded their contract tracker page to include full AAV details for everyone. It's basically their own little CapGeek, right there on the team's official website. I don't know whose idea that was, but he or she becomes the second member of the Predators organization that everyone else should be trying to emulate at all times, right behind P.K. Subban.

Again, we're not all the way there yet; some teams are still being stubborn and dumb about this. But at this point, it's clear which way the wind is blowing. And every time a new team smartens up and joins the good side, the remaining stragglers will just look more ridiculous.

We haven't won yet. But we're going to win. That seems clear now. And it's something worth celebrating.

OK, back to complaining…

It's the time of year when EA Sports starts releasing player ratings for the new game in its NHL series, which means it's the time of year when hockey fans start getting angry about player ratings for the new game in the NHL series.

As usual, most of this year's complaints are directed at specific decisions, like having Jonathan Quick ranked the same as Carey Price, or Ryan Suter ahead of Erik Karlsson. But really, that stuff doesn't matter much. The ratings make for a fun debate topic in the middle of the summer, but ultimately a point or two here or there isn't going to make any noticeable difference.

And that's the problem: We're always talking about a point or two, because EA Sports insists on giving everyone essentially the same rating every year. The best players all bunch up around a 94, the next tier comes in around 92, and even borderline stars end up getting an 88 or 89.

It doesn't have to be that way, because [hikes up pants and adjusts reading glasses] in my day our video games had real ratings, dangnabbit. If you were the best player in the league, you were 100. If you were just a run-of-the-mill star, you got stuck with a 70 or 80. If you were a depth guy, you'd drop below 50. Hell, if you were really bad, EA Sports would drop the dreaded "1" rating on you.

That's when ratings meant something. But it all started to change when NHL '94 came out, and did away with the ultra-low ratings that were embarrassing some players. (That change was one of the reasons that NHLPA '93 was the best game in the series. Yes, it was. Fight me.) That started the ratings creep trend, one that's continued for decades, and is directly to blame for the wussification of today's generation. Giving participation trophies to losers isn't making our kids soft. Giving Richard Panik an "82" in NHL 16 damn well is.

You want to get angry about defenseman ratings? Save your "P.K. Subban should be a 93 instead of a 91" argument. Call me when you find a team that has half its defensemen ranked a "2". Until then, EA Sports can take its commie pinko ratings and shove them.

[Removes NHLPA '93 cartridge from Genesis and furiously blows on it.]

Speaking of those classic NHLPA '93 ratings, let's go ahead make this week's obscure player Darren Rumble.

Rumble was a standout defenseman who was a first-round pick by Philadelphia in the 1987 entry draft, going just five picks after Joe Sakic. He broke in with the Flyers during the 1990-91 season, playing three games. That was all he'd get with the team that drafted him, but it was apparently enough to land him on the radar of the expansion Senators, who took him in the 1992 expansion draft. He'd go on to spend two full seasons in Ottawa before a free agent return to the Flyers. After a three-year stint split between Europe and the minors, he was back in the big leagues as a depth defenseman with the Blues and Lightning. In all, he played 193 NHL games stretched over 14 years, which is pretty cool when you think about it.

But if you're of a certain age, none of that is how you remember Darren Rumble. Instead, you remember meeting him for the first time as one of those three Senators defenseman who got slapped with a "2" overall rating in NHLPA '93.

This, of course, led you to immediately think two things. One, hey cool, this guy is twice as good as Shawn Chambers. And two, there is no way "Darren Rumble" is a real guy.

I mean, I wasn't alone on that one, right? "Darren Rumble" sounds like the fake name they gave the gritty defenseman because they didn't think they'd get the players license, and then at the last second they did and they forgot to change it back. Come on, a guy who does stuff like this and is named "Rumble"? This guy is a first ballot member of the Obviously Made-Up Hockey Player Name Hall of Fame, along with Tony Twist, Larry Playfair and Lude Check.

Rumble played another year in the minors before retiring in 2005. He went on to a successful career in coaching, and served as head coach of the Norfolk Admirals and Moncton Wildcats as well as on the staff of various Canadian international teams.

He has never revealed what his real name is.

Like a lot of hockey fans, I was feeling pretty good this week. The Summer Olympics had just ended, and while they're not really my thing, I had to admit that they turned out to be pretty fun. They were also a nice reminder that we're not all that far away from the next Winter Games, which means the next Olympic hockey tournament. And if 18 months is too long to wait for elite international hockey, we've got the World Cup starting up in just a few more weeks. Life is good!

And then, Puck Daddy editor Greg Wyshynski tweeted this:

Is anyone else conflicted that the better the World Cup of Hockey does, the worse the chances of NHL Olympic participation get?

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski)August 23, 2016

I mean… it's just that… the thing is…

Dammit, he's 100 percent right, isn't he?

We've known for a while now that the NHL's commitment to the 2018 Olympics was hanging by a thread, because most of the owners don't want to pause the season and risk injuries and fatigue to star players for games that will be played in the middle of the night in North America. And we knew that a successful World Cup would mitigate some of the pain of the NHL abandoning the Olympics. But the obvious connection between those two premises was just tenuous enough to cover your ears and ignore. Right up until Wysh went and ruined it for everyone.

But it's true. If the World Cup is a hit, that gives the NHL all the ammo it needs to kill off Olympics participation for at least the next decade or so. After all, it's far better for the league if the World Cup becomes the world's top tournament, since, unlike the Olympics, the NHL runs the whole show and gets to keep the revenue it generates.

If you love international hockey—the meaningful best-on-best variety, not the kind where ragtag college kids can fluke out a win that we'll never hear the end of—then you're kind of screwed. There doesn't seem to be a realistic path to the World Cup and NHL participation at the Olympics co-existing.

So what's a hockey fan to do?

Be it resolved that you should just watch and enjoy the World Cup, guilt-free, and let the chips fall where they may. Let's face it, the NHL has probably already made up its mind that the Olympics are done, and is just making sure the World Cup isn't a complete and total disaster before it makes it official. This was very likely the plan all along, and on some level we always knew that.

The World Cup is going to murder the Olympics next month. It was always going to be this way, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. We may as well enjoy it while it's happening.

The Olympics are over, and I miss them already. So today, let's head back for a look at some classic Olympic hockey. Way, way back.

• So this clip was recently uploaded by the British Film Institute and brought to my attention by a reader. According to the YouTube description, it's from the "March 1948 edition of Mining Review, the coal industry's monthly cinemagazine," which I didn't know existed but now kind of want to binge watch.

• The clip is called "Coal On Ice" for reasons that will quickly become clear. This is of course not to be confused with the documentary about the 2015-16 Penguins winning the Stanley Cup despite a troubling lack of depth on the blueline, which was called "Cole On Ice."

• We open with a group of Scottish miners emerging after a shift at the pit. Among them is our hero, Tom Syme, who we soon learn is leaving to join the British hockey team for the Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Tom's family and friends have gathered at the train station to see him off. Everyone is smoking, because they all aspire to someday be Al Iafrate.

• Our delightful narrator makes reference to a near "international incident" caused by the Americans. Here's the back story: In 1948, the US wound up sending two teams to the Olympics thanks to a rift between two amateur hockey associations (one of which wasn't especially amateur). Initially, both teams were disqualified, which nearly caused the entire tournament to be cancelled. An eventual compromise allowed the US to enter a team that would be allowed to participate in the Games but wouldn't be able to win a medal. You know, kind of like we've being doing for Russia over the last decade.

• "And then on top of that the thaw set in and the ice began to disappear." Oh cool, we're skipping ahead to the modern NHL playoffs.

• We jump over to Tom's local ice rink, where we linger awkwardly on the figure skaters for a little too long. We're here to get some shots of Tom playing hockey with his friends. It's footage from the miner leagues.

• By the way, I realize this doesn't make all that much sense given we just saw him leave for the Olympics, but after last week's Wayne Gretzky thing I'm not in the mood to figure out the logistics of time travel again.

• No, I don't know why Mats Zuccarello is leading one of the team's onto the ice.

• We cut to some game footage, which is actually pretty cool. Hockey in 1948 wasn't all that different from what it looks like today, with the exception of the equipment being different and also that apparently you scored by just skating directly into the net and knocking it flying, since that's what happens on every play here.

• "Miner leagues." You all got that, right? OK, just making sure.

• Also, Tom has absolutely mastered the "hit the body-check button to win the faceoff" video game move.

• "Ice hockey is a fast game, and the players are changed every few minutes." Sure, that sounds about right. This script was written by Alexei Kovalev.

• The NHL Network needs to have a show where they give you all that night's highlights, but with this guy doing the narration over top of this music. Bonus points if he's as shocked by every nickname as he is by Tiny. "TINY?"

• But seriously, why is the directing and camera work on this 1948 mining infomercial better than 90 percent of the NHL's modern day marketing?

• The epilogue here is that Tom and his teammates went on to finish with a 3-5-0 record at the Games, good for fifth place once the American entry was removed. That included a 3-0 loss to the eventual gold medal-winning Canadians, which isn't bad considering they beat Italy 21-1.

• Tom Syme was inducted to the British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame in 2005. (His older brother "TINY?" was inducted, too.)

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com.