Listen to Sid the Kid

Brian Costello, of The Hockey News, reports that Sidney Crosby said that the size of goalie equipment needs to be reduced

"Like E.F. Hutton, when Sidney Crosby speaks, people listen. Crosby is the NHL’s best marketing tool: the league wants him playing in every NHL city every season and is doing what it can to balance the schedule.
So when Crosby told The Hockey News recently he thinks the NHL should take further steps to reduce the size of goalie equipment, you know the league heard the echoes over and over again."

Last week it was reported that Dallas Stars goalies made fun of Roberto Luongo because he wears an extra flap, for protection, on his pads. James Mirtle mentioned it in his blog too.

"So it was surprising to hear the news Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo is playing with two small extra knee flaps, which extend outside the allowable 11-inch width of each pad near the knee.
The fact Luongo’s getting away with this is astonishing. Even Dallas goalies Marty Turco and Mike Smith made light of the extra flaps by donning exaggerated cardboards flaps of their own in mock jest, of course."

It doesn't make sense to me why the NHL allows Luongo to exceed the stated rules. It also doesn't make sense to me why the NHL is considering making the nets bigger when it could reduce the size of goalie equipment. The technology is there to do so.
Phil Esposito also thinks the size of goalie equipment should be reduced, and specifically said the gloves of today are enormous compared to when he played.

To grow the game or not to grow the game

Terry Frei wrote a great article I think every hockey fan should read. He made some really good points, and I agree with him.

The pursuit of fans: How far is far enough for the NHL?
"Should the league make the attempt to convert the uninitiated a top priority, especially in territories with neither hockey tradition nor public rinks? Or should it abandon that as a counterproductive quest for the Impossible Dream?"
Later he concludes.
"I usually settle on a happy medium, which seems to be the league's unofficial position. Especially while dealing with in-arena and local broadcasting issues, the trick is to avoid turning off the hard core with pursuit of the "new" fans. I'm passionately against some of the bush-league stunts that plague us -- screaming hucksters on microphones in the stands during stoppages, childish implorations on scoreboard screens and generic U.S. game-night experiences that seem to have been dreamed up by geeks with sports marketing degrees who rose to the top of dual basketball-hockey ownership organizations."

While surfing during the Red Wings game last night I found that article. Then I went to another site and found this article written by Larry Dobrow. I'm thinking he has a lot of reasons why attendance might be down in some hockey markets. Then I get toward the end and he contradicts himself where hockey is concerned.
"Hockey, maybe? My most recent NHL experience, on Tuesday night, was loud and expensive, but no other sport benefits as much from in-person consumption as does hockey. Them's guys done skated fast!"