NHL vs. NBA: the One-Sided Debate

With the NHL and NBA playoffs occupying the same space on the calendar, comparisons are inevitable. Such comparisons are usually made by the hockey crowd.

Tom Jones at Tampabay.com writes that hockey has the best overtime in sports. Ray Ratto of CBSSports.com and the San Francisco Chronicle says the Stanley Cup show has far more intrigue than the NBA.

And in Anaheim, where the home team packed up its gear a couple of weeks ago, Mark Whicker of the OC Register is all over hockey.

...if you live in New Orleans, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Orlando or Cleveland, you are blissfully unaware of how unlucky you are.

You have the NBA and you never have had the NHL, and so you live under the impression that you're seeing something urgent and dramatic.

You have no idea that the hockey playoffs are to the basketball playoffs what the William Tell Overture is to Chopsticks.

It's not that the basketball games lack juice. It's just that the hockey games overflow with it.

All this is very nice for the NHL. But what it does is highlight the league's status as the weak sister of American sport.

In places like Florida and California, declaring a love of hockey must be unusual. It's worth a column, after all. It makes a guy stand out.

It's the kind of publicity only an underdog sport needs. Jones, Ratto and Whicker want readers to know that they're missing a great game. The Neilson ratings confirm this.

It would never occur to a basketball aficionado to announce a preference for the NBA over the NHL. Most of them are only vaguely aware that the NHL even exists.