Hockey's Lifeblood Heats Up This Weekend

By following the dramas and rivalries that play out in the week's to come, you could draw a virtual map of the hockey heartland. But unless you live in the midst of it, you probably don't care. For the most part, these games are a strictly local passion.

So does the CHL or NCAA hockey need its own Gary Bettman, with a vision to push the product, fatten the calf and maximize shareholder return? Hardly. The small-town touch is what makes these games tick. Hockey fans in Sudbury know the Wolves are their's and their's alone. Students at the University of Wisconsin don't mind if no one shares their steadfast faith in the Badgers.

Junior and college hockey are not immune to the problems of modern sport. But the folks running these more modest games recognize and respect the lifeblood of the game: the devoted core of fans who show up at the rink in good times and bad.

This spring they'll be hanging on every move of a team you've probably never heard of, lining up in the pre-dawn hours to buy tickets, raising the roof in arenas that seat 3,000 or 5,000, paying 15 or 20 dollars each for the privilege. They'll do it with a dedication that Gary Bettman and his marketing gurus can only dream of, no matter how many millions they spend on tacky ad campaigns.