Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Hockey's a great sport, but the NHL sucks. It's a great sport to watch in person, with the electricity of the crowd, the speed of the game, the violence (which, actually is just as intense if not more so than the NFL), and even, yes, the fights.
Scoring is a combination of skill and luck, which makes it maddening at time to watch, but the skill level it takes to play hockey is amazing. The conditioning. The stick-handling. The strength, the speed, the quickness. Everything. It's a wonderful sport. But I can't keep track of all the player movement, and I can't get excited about a Tampa Bay-Carolina or a Phoenix-Anaheim hockey game. It's a winter sport. Meant to be played in cold climates by Canadians, northerners, and the occassional Russkie.
Sadly, hockey has no idea how to make the sport relevant again. How can you enjoy following the Blackhawks when you have only road games on TV (in turn almost guaranteeing that the locals will see the Hawks lose more than they win)? How can you follow hockey nationally when ESPN treats the game like fly-fishing -- programming to show when there's no NFL, college basketball, NBA or baseball to put on.
It's a mismanaged sport. Who cares. It'll be gone this winter!
