Revisiting the absurd and relevant predictions of 'Hockey 2050'

Imagine the year 2050. If you’re a hockey fan, you might wonder whether the sport could still be played in nuclear winter. But hey, at least there’ll be a few more lakes and ponds to skate on.

Anyone can predict or debate the future of NHL hockey and rarely does the measuring tape reach past the next lockout. And it when it does — like when the NHL turns reflective at 100 years old — it’s often joyless and without humour. But to really make some changes in a sport whose fans are an average age of 49, projecting further and with some imagination could provide a needed shift in perspective.

A Detroit-area television network in the mid-1980s devoted 10 minutes of air time over two nights to predict 60-plus years into the future of hockey in a segment called Hockey 2050. It doesn’t tip-toe past some of the tough realities we’re likely to face, like climate change and how to deliver hot dogs to fans in the front row. But it also engages with some of today’s current affairs like player safety, player-tracking technology and the experience of the fan at home and in the arena. All while feeling like an infomercial directed by David Cronenberg (49-year-olds will get that reference).

Marty Adler, who voiced the piece for PASS Sports, never saw the drawings in the video until after recording his part. “So when I was reading it, I thought, ‘Holy smokes, this is different,’” Adler told Yahoo Canada Sports. That’s an understatement.

Adler employed what he calls his “shtick” at CBC, TSN and PASS Sports in Detroit, across from his hometown of Windsor, Ont. Somewhere in there he also hosted the gameshow Reach For The Top, which was hosted by another Canadian television personality.

“Marty Adler was doing it in Windsor,” he said, referring to himself in the third person. “Alex Trebek was doing it in Toronto. Look where he is today, in Hollywood making $20 million a year while Marty’s sitting here talking to Joe Pack.

“I was a different kind of sportscaster. I wasn’t all that interested in sports but when the CBC assigned me to them, I said I was going to do it my way, with something more memorable. I did things no one had seen before.”

Which Adler did often. For a World Cup promo, he kicked a ball back and forth with local Windsor shopkeepers until breaking a butcher’s storefront glass. He yelled “CBC Sports!” while the bloodied and knife-wielding butcher chased him down the middle of the street. He did a TV spot atop Tiger Stadium when Cecil Fielder hit the first home run over the the left field roof, convinced Bob Probert to cut a wrestling-style promo, and got the media-shy George Bell to look like a sweetheart.

“So when the Hockey 2050 thing came along, it fit into my typical shtick,” he said. “I think broadcasters found my approach refreshing.”

He and illustrator Rob Wingett couldn’t quite remember who conceived of this fever dream of a TV segment. “Someone named Frank?” Wingett said in a text message after he’d wracked his brain over the phone. Neither is even a hockey fan. Imagine that.

It’s hard to pin down just what Hockey 2050 is, since so rarely do we project so far ahead in sports. Is it a wish list for the future? Early climate change activism? A blueprint for the sport’s survival?

The first rendering of the future we get is of a balmy and palm-tree laden Alaska with Adler matter-of-factly explaining global warming’s effect on ice hockey. What looks at first like transition wipes indicating 60-plus years passing are in fact observable heat waves, coursing through the air and probably flash-frying anyone in their path. Hockey, we learn, is no longer played on ice, which — admittedly — is harmful to the environment with all the maintenance it requires. And since ice is obsolete, as Adler intones, the sport can expand to far-off markets like Egypt, Guam, Singapore and Mexico City. Maybe hockey can be saved through sunbelt expansion. It just needs to concede in its fight with the sun.

Without ice we get jet skates, to the surprise of no one. But it’s the inside of the skates that really push the envelop. “By manipulating controls with one’s toes, acceleration, maneuvers and stopping are performed. Those with superior toe dexterity are the Steve Yzermans and Denis Savards of the future,” Adler says.

Boy, would those toe controls get dirty fast. Are players not wearing socks anymore? What is toe dexterity and does Adam Oates host summer courses on it? What happens when a player breaks a toe? The logic here is maddening but points awarded for being among the top five most disturbing images of Hockey 2050.

Player safety is of the utmost concern today with an ongoing concussion lawsuit, players having difficulty transitioning into retirement and star players missing chunks of their careers playing a violent sport. But the top minds of 2050 have it figured out: equipment that instantaneously inflates when a player or object comes near.

This isn’t so much a bad idea as much as it’s unfeasible. What if a player throws a legal hit to the chest but his shoulder pad inflates into his opponent’s head? Is that a head shot?

Wingett, one of two illustrators behind the video, recognized some of the jokes and Easter eggs embedded within. He put everything down with pencil while Jon Barber filled in the sketches with water colour.

“For example, the Lazer Stik is said to have been developed by a laid-off nuclear power plant worker,” he said. “His location on the world map seems to place him around Chernobyl, which melted down in 1986, so this must have been done after that.”

Only $14,999 and a bit of plutonium gets you the Lazer Stik.

A Clockwork Orange-style helmet (for the 49-year-olds reading) allows for players and coaches to communicate through radio at all times, making coordinated attacks by the Washington Capitals on Sidney Crosby more user-friendly. But bizarre guesses like that are balanced with surprisingly relevant-to-today discussions about putting computer chips in pucks that tell for certain whether they crossed the goal line.

“Some players opt for brain probes that allow them to communicate telepathically,” the video explains. Now this gets interesting. Will referees be communicating telepathically? That would sure solve a few problems with assessing penalties (particularly diving and puck-over-the-glass infractions.) Presumably the goalies opt in for this first, but how could players resist adopting another degree of group-think? Does the goalie know the shooter is going glove-side, while the shooter knows that the goalie knows and at the same time the goalie knows the shooter knows he knows?

“Hockey has been the same game for years and years,” said Adler. “Some of the stuff in the video has come true, at least metaphorically.”

The video is a time capsule, but one that reveals a bit about the 1980s and a potentially near future. It had the right idea to begin dreaming up real change for a sport and a planet facing an environmental catastrophe. The message is bold: take the game south, expand to 128 teams, stop concussing star players and make it even harder for male Edmonton Oilers fans to find Rogers Place bathrooms by rotating the arena’s upper bowl.

Similarly, Adler’s message is bold in suggesting to look around the fringes for some of hockey’s best storytelling.

“You’ve gotta find that edge, you can’t just report sports like everyone else does,” he said. “You have to have a hook.”

Hockey 2050 is a half-baked joke spun up with a debate about the state of the game, and real change in the sport can too often be choked by the community who can’t see the forest for the trees that are on fire. And it’s also a reminder that unique storytelling has a way of staying with its audience well after the message lands.

At least we’ll know who to thank for player and puck-tracking technology.