The end of the semester is here, so I thought I would take a few minutes to reflect on hockey in my life, as well as let you guys understand why I think hockey is the greatest on the planet.
I can remember the first time I ever put on a pair of skates. I had watched my father play as a little kid and thought that he was the best player in the world. I wanted to be just like dad. I was shy about getting on the ice, but once I got out there I never wanted to the leave. The ice rink has become a second home for me, a place to get away from the rest of life, and just be myself. There were so many sports to choose from growing up, baseball, water skiing, basketball, etc., but I never felt a love and passion for anything but hockey.
It brought me away from home at a young age, and when you are an only child, leaving your family behind is especially tough, but not a day goes by where I would change any decision I made. Every kid dreams of playing professional sports when they are young, and I thought I was going to be the next Wayne Gretzky. Clearly that dream didn’t workout, but I have to look back at the people I have met on my journey and just say thank you. Next season will probably the last real hockey I ever play (except for beer league domination), and it is starting to sink in exactly how fast time flies.
But enough about myself. What makes hockey so great? If you have been to any NHL arena you understand. The atmosphere is spectacular. It does not matter if your team is in last place or first, you go to every game to root your team to victory, and you even get that sick feeling in your stomach when they lose. Sure, you have never played for the team, and there probably is not a single person on the ice who knows you exist, but you still feel like a part of the team through the good times and the bad. Being at a hockey game brings you together with thousands of strangers, but you still high five the guy next to you, the lady behind you, and you both make fools out of yourselves to cheer your team on. Hockey is special in that way, I can’t think of another sport where the fans get into it as much as they do in hockey.
In baseball, the game lasts for four hours, you have to wait two minutes between pitches, and you may not even get to see the home run blast we all watch baseball for. It’s easy to lose focus. It is also a sport where the team with the highest payrolls seem to always make the playoffs, and there is little parity throughout the league. Baseball is exciting for the first two months, and the playoffs, but hockey is fun to watch every night with big hits, nice goals, and oh yeah, there’s the fighting.
When it comes to football, its the same thing as baseball, pretty much the same teams are always good, and its a slow moving game. Yes, football is a tough sport, there is a lot of hitting, on every play, but there is also that forty percent (or more) of the plays that are two yard runs, or incomplete passes. I can’t find myself glued to my seat for an entire game unless its the playoffs.
Do not even get me started on NBA basketball. I live in Raleigh, North Carolina in the middle of college basketball country, and minutes from Tobacco Road. College basketball is exciting when two big schools play, and the school spirit that is present does rival any other sport, but again the best time to watch it is in March, when the games really matter. But have you watched an NBA game lately? Especially in the regular season, when the final score is 105-100. Where is the defense? I like highlights of awesome dunks as much as the next guy, but when every other possession results in a wide open dunk it gets a little old. I would rather sit and watch a 1-0 hockey game then regular season NBA game.
So why does hockey not get more national coverage? The reasoning is the same that makes the sport so great, market loyalty. Hockey fans (in the regular season) do not spend as much time watching teams and games that are out of their respective market. This is the argument that has kept the NHL off of ESPN. The problem is, the reason that fans cannot pay attention to the entire league is that there is no television coverage of hockey, except for a couple times a week on NBC Sports Network. If they gave us more access we would watch. Think of the recent NFL draft. That week on Sportscenter we knew every detail about every player in the draft. Could we not have left people with a little suspense for when the actual draft took place? Maybe throw in a couple hockey highlights to fill that time slot. Maybe then we would see an expansion of the game. Read the 2010 comments by ESPN’s senior vice president to defend NHL coverage (or lack there of) on Sportscenter, it will make you laugh.
This year’s playoffs will hopefully change that. ESPN still maintains that hockey just doesn’t translate well to television. But the fact is, people are watching:
According to the overnight ratings, the Flyers’ Game 2 loss on NBC Sports Network on Tuesday night nearly doubled the combined local viewership of both the Sixers’ playoff win in Chicago and the Phillies’ game in Atlanta.
The New York series also has set NBC Sports Network records in the NY market and the Washington D.C. market.
One could say that hockey doesn’t need ESPN with those numbers, but the fact is, hockey needs ESPN if it ever wants to grow to its full potential, and become a major sport in this country. But hey, at least it’s more popular than soccer.
Will we ever see the return of FoxTrax?
Thank you to all my friends, family, and followers that have made Danglesauce successful this semester, and hopefully there will be much more to come!
Dangle Sauce 