The NHL playoffs have started again, and the league doesn’t seem to care whether you watch or not.
The chase for Lord Stanley’s Cup, arguably the greatest and most storied trophy in professional sports, suffers from being too long, including too many teams, and not gathering significant interest from casual fans. In other words, it’s the WNBA on skates.
Mychael Urban of MLB.COM (via KUKLASCORNER.COM) said as much in his blog yesterday:
Does the U.S. media have an East Coast bias? Sure. Our country was founded there, as were all of the big-time sports leagues. (Save your e-mails, hockey fans. We’re aware that the NHL was founded in Canada. We’re also aware that you aren’t “big-time” until your TV ratings top those of “Golden Girls” reruns on Lifetime.)
It’s interesting that Urban points to the ratings and not the quality of the product itself, and with good reason. The NHL playoffs routinely feature excellent games played at a significantly higher level than their regular season counterparts. Players skate harder. They hit harder. A greater emphasis is placed on team play, while “gooning it up” takes a back seat to the task at hand.
Hockey is exciting. Playoff hockey is almost orgasmic. Baseball may draw more fans to its games and more eyeballs to its telecasts. That doesn’t make it necessarily better.
It’s sad that the NHL’s management and laughable TV deals of late will keep hockey out of many living rooms and water cooler conversations this spring. So if the playoffs have ended, and the Cup is hoisted when no one is watching, does it make a sound?
11:39 am on April 12th, 2008
I’m a huge baseball fan, and yes, baseball has more appeal, but I’d advise anybody who doesn’t believe hockey is exciting to take in any game of the Washington/Philly series, the San Jose/Calgary series, or the Colorado/Minnesota series so they can find out they’re dead wrong.
11:59 am on April 12th, 2008
I blame Gary Bettman. I was a big hockey fan during the late-80’s and even more so in the early 90’s when they finally got on tv (and I didn’t need a big dish to get the games). Then he went and screwed everything up.
I still watch all of the Olympic Hockey I can get my eyes on, but the NHL was pretty much ruined by the lockout for a lot of people. The tv deals that made it hard to find a team and actually follow them made it even worse. I used to be a Calgary Flames fan, because I could actually see the games. I haven’t found a televised Flames game in my area for probably 10 years. It’s sad.
You are so right. Playoff hockey is fantastic.
1:11 pm on April 12th, 2008
Completely Bettman’s fault. I remember going to Avalanche games during the Stanley Cup finals and being obsessed with following the team. The NHL hasn’t made it easy to do so with its lousy Versus contract, and has screwed markets out of seeing its new stars come to all the cities with the unbalanced schedule that too heavily favors division rival matchups.