Just picked up the October 4th issue of The Hockey News. I saw it on the news stand and could not resist. And it was no big surprise that it was such a piece of ****! This is a **** shame, as anyone who remembers THN in the 80's. Now it is just mostly empty and hollow articles. Yes, great job with draft stuff and stats but these things do not prevent the rag from being vapid and just trashy gloss.
so, whats the solution? Easy: copy the format of the best of the European soccer mags. Intellectual probing columns. (No boring newspaper re-hashings). Hire good writers! Bring back Bluelines, Hell, pay Stan whatever it takes. Get Red (the BEST hockey writer ever). Anyone else agree? If I didn't used to love THN so much I would not care.

I agree that the quality has certainly gone downhill. There are frequent typos - a recent issue had a headline reading something like "Age irreverant to coach", about a young coach (should have been "irrelevant"). The articles are painfully superficial at times, and offer no real insight ("the Sens need to get tougher" - thanks, that helps a lot).