Is the NHL Off its Medication?
It seems the hockey power brokers have finally lost track of what's real and what's fantasy in this hall of mirrors known as the NHL.
That's the only possible explanation for reports that the league might add a couple of new teams in Las Vegas and Kansas City. Don't bother sputtering with rage and disbelief. Dan Wetzel at Yahoo! Sports has it covered. His latest column should be posted at every NHL front office and tatooed on Gary Bettman's butt:
The game is great. The league stinks. We want our old NHL back; fewer teams not more, owners that want to win, not bilk taxpayers, real television coverage, not something that’s on before bull riding.
If there are any owners who do still care, any who want to save this league before it is truly too late, they need to stand up today, beat back the expansion crowd, fire the failed commissioner and buy out the deadbeat owners so they close up the dead end franchises.
Thanks to Tom Benjamin for the pointer.
Comments
Right on Jamie! Can we get the NHL back on the USA Network again?
So we want good owners but we don’t want potential owners like Bruckheimer and AEG who have deep pockets, enthusiasm, and experience owning teams to get their hands on NHL franchises. Got it.
What the NHL doesn’t need is more owners of more teams. If Bruckheimer or AEG want a hockey team, let them buy a current dud and move it where they like. Besides, who’s to say whether either of them would be good owners? Disney had deep pockets. Bill Wirtz has deep pockets.
Its difficult to jump off a fast moving train. The owners are like crack addicts. They get $$$ every time a new NHL franchise is added, even though having more teams in the league waters down their product…hurting them in the long run. Keep the Northern US & Canadian teams and tell southern investors to establish a strong following in a junior franchise first!
Here’s how to save the NHL. Eliminate Tampa Bay, Nashville, Anaheim, Columbus, and Florida and move Carolina to Winnipeg. No more expansion. Fire Bettman. Bring back the Smythe, Norris, Patrick, and Adams division. Perfect.
But MOST importantly, forbid people like Derek from attending any games, because they don’t get it. Winnepeg had a team and couldn’t hold on to it (ala Nashville perhaps??)… if ANY Canadian city deserves an NHL team, it should be Quebec City, or Hamilton.
Let’s be honest, if you really love the sport then it’s not a matter of WHERE the games are being played, or even who’s playing them. Hockey is the greatest game on earth. There are more than enough of us who get it.
The two most valid arguments that I’m reading on the boards, hearing in commentary and discussing with other fans are:
-The changing of the rules (which changes the game) to cater to a white-collared corporate American palate.
-The deplorable officiating
For the record, I was born American. I grew up in the NE, having been two the first time I ever laced up. I grew up watching hockey. I played hockey for a number of years in my youth. I spent 16 years working in white collar corporate America. And, surprise, I have an opinion.
Hockey is not just a game, it’s a tradition.
How to we save the NHL? First: Honor Tradition.
Hockey isn’t about division rivalries…it’s about the best teams playing their best game. The current scheduling is a joke. I want the Canadian road-trip loop back (Vancouver to Calgary to Edmonton to Toronto to Montreal. It was fun. Great friends and great times). I want the Ottawa Sens fans seated to the rafters in our house in February, wearing their cool Sens-logo Hawaiian shirts as they did their SE loop (Carolina, Atlanta, Tampa, Sunrise… they’re some of the best fans to be at a game with!) Hockey has, and always will, belong to the fans. It’s our game, and we want it back.
Hockey Night in Canada. I don’t care who’s playing or if it IS a playoff game where Crosby might score a goal, Hockey Night in Canada is tradition. I remain thoroughly disgusted that Canadian tradition would be sacrificed in an attempt to ‘grow’ the American market. If hockey were so easy a sport to get into by watching t.v., then don’t you think that already would have happened? The BEST hockey is live hockey. Especially for those who have never been to a game before. One live game kids, that’s all you need. One game and you’re hooked.
Free T.V. hockey, full-season, Allstars, regular channels for regular people. Hockey’s roots are with the blue-collar working class. Want to increase fans? Make the game accessible to the people who love it. Stop demanding $$ for every little bit of hockey that hits the US airwaves, or crying because you’ve lost a corporate sponsorship. I was able to watch the QMJHL playoffs ‘free’. What a great series. I got to watch NHL playoff games ‘free’. No Versus or NBC one-trick-pony stupidity. No pay-on-demand crap. Just sit down and (legally) watch good hockey….(and let Don Cherry comment on US airwaves more often).
Better marketing. If people who understand Hockey were in charge of marketing, then expansion would be simple. Know your audience. Want to know who the football fans are in your house? They’re the ones who, in a game scored 3-2, get up and leave with eight minutes left in the third period. Hockey fans stay till the bitter end. And if you don’t have a strong hockey fan base, then reach out and educate the fan base that you do have.
Tough guys. Enough said. If you think hockey is too violent, then please don’t attend. That’s one of the fundamentals that makes the sport what it is – yes, another tradition. Go watch figure skating if you can’t hang with the tough guys.
Second (only in name, of equal importance to the first, and I must extend credit here to my Scotian friends): Get a commissioner who respects tradition, respects the game, respects the people who love it, and understands how it needs to be played. And at this point I concur that the commissioner of the NHL needs to be Canadian. Now. Before the NHL’s been spread so thin that the ice melts.
Get officials with NHL hockey experience and keep them. Get rid of the bad calls and the bias. No one’s being fooled, and you’re losing true fans by making a mockery of the sport. And during the playoffs send all of the East officials West, and the West officials East., and PLEASE get officials who understand that it’s a PLAYOFF game on the ice. The ONLY series of the ‘07 Stanley cup finals that I thought were called well were the finals themselves. Everything else leading up to it was a charade (and for the record, all on-ice officials for the Ottawa-Anaheim series were Canadian).
What can we as fans do? Perhaps boycott our respective teams game openers? I’m opening to anything at the moment but I really think that the only way we’re going to save this game is if we together make our voice.
I may not be a Canadian, but I love this game.
Hey…one of those Florida teams won Stanley. In fact, Stan will be getting a tan now for four years (counting lockout. Teams in the Frozen Tundra country just need to shut up & play! Get him back!
Seriously, why would the NHL ever want to go to Winnipeg again? They drew like crap for years averaging right around 10k and 11k per game. Go back and look at the numbers if you don’t believe me.
As far as hamilton goes what a joke, their AHL team just won the Calder Cup and they averaged less than 5,000 fans per game. That’s middle of the pack by AHL standards.
Just becuase it is in Canada doesn’t mean a hockey team will be successful. The people Canada aren’t going to show up just because a team is in the building they didn’t in Winnipeg for years and I would think the only game it town in Hamilton would draw better than middle of the pack when they are winning. What would happen if the Preds move there and they didn’t win?
Is it really fair to judge Kansas City by the Scouts of 1974 and 1975? Two years of expansion anything isn’t enough time to make a fair judgement. Just look at Denver, the Rockies weren’t successful and moved to Jersey and when the Nordiques moved to Denver they were instantly popular and still are.
Las Vegas, I think this is a horrible mistake. Houston or Seattle but not Las Vegas. Too many people from somewhere else.
Kansas City wants another sport, where the NFL does well the NHL typically does well too.