With Mr. Jibber Jabber away for one more week, I’m taking this opportunity to write about one of the least discussed sports in this column — the only sport with weapons attached to the players’ feet, and rubber projectiles flying at 100 mph — hockey.
In my two years at Soundoff!, I think hockey has only been mentioned a handful of times, mostly in reference to video games. And that’s because, well, nobody casually thinks, or cares, about hockey.
As a hockey player of nearly 20 years, that’s not something I like to admit.
Neither is learning that a show called “Dogs in the City” had more than twice the viewers than Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals this year. Even the rerun of the same episode had better viewership — just like the other 64 shows (mostly reruns) that beat out The Cup.
It’s easy to blame this on the concept that we’re in America and hockey is a Canadian sport. But it actually comes down to the NHL’s horrible decision-making.
The single worst blow to the sport in America is the fact that the NHL basically controls the popularity. And it’s doing a really, really bad job at convincing fans to watch, let alone play.
Case and point is that despite hockey’s (slightly) growing popularity, the owners are about to lock out the players, hurting a fickle fanbase.
Sure, right now this is no different than the NFL lockout last year, but they got their entire season back. Or than the NBA’s, even though they played 66 of their 82 games.
The difference is the last time this happened to the NHL, the league became the first professional sports league to lose an entire season over a labor dispute. Not only did that lockout ruin a full 10 months of my childhood, it also resulted in a lost number of fans.
In 2002 — just two seasons before the lockout — 5.1 million Americans watched the Stanley Cup Finals between the Carolina Hurricanes and Detroit Red Wings.
During the last Stanley Cup Finals before the lockout in 2005, numbers dropped as an average of 3.286 million watched the Tampa Bay Lightning defeat the Calgary Flames in seven games.
It wasn’t until 2008 that the Stanley Cup reached the numbers of the Lighting-Flames series again. The finals still haven’t reached 2002 status — seven years after the lockout.
Part of this is that ESPN and ABC stopped carrying the games, realizing people wouldn’t watch hockey on TV. And that was it for hockey on “the world’s leader in sports.” Hockey fans are lucky to catch any NHL highlights on SportsCenter.
No, we’re stuck watching the NHL Network to hear analysts mispronounce players’ names on the league’s own media source — $120 well spent.
The 2004-2005 lockout ruined any shot of good coverage for the average sports fan who would randomly stumble onto a game, losing them for years. Some of that fanbase never really built back up despite the big names in Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh making some national headlines.
And now they want to close up the arenas again, pushing the game even further from American thought. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Although the league currently has a long-term deal with NBC to broadcast a few games a week, this lockout could become just as detrimental as the previous.
The NHL is already struggling with some of its current fans due to the simple fact that they just don’t like commissioner Gary Bettman. Could be the unnecessary expansion and removing teams from Canada, or strange new rules and policies. Or it may have something to do with that whole “he looks like an evil elf” thing.
OK. That may just be me.
But with the league already struggling with fans and in the ratings, another year without a reminder that hockey at least exists will set back the sport for more years, losing fans and preventing new ones from catching on.
There is a shot that the league and the players’ association figure this all out before the current CBA expires on Sept. 15. But if they don’t, it will again be the world’s premier professional hockey league that will be delivering the swift blow to the sport of hockey in America.
And apparently, I’ll be watching dogs in New York City come October.
Editor’s note: Chad Jones is on vacation. Staff writer Brandon Bieltz is this week’s guest columnist. Jibber returns Sept. 6.
