Hockey is failing south of the Canadian border
VICTORIA (CUP) -- Gary Bettman is ruining hockey.
It wasn't the neutral zone trap. It wasn't the clutch-and-grab style of play. And it's not even the schedule that forces some teams to travel twice as much as their divisional rivals.
Rather, it's the NHL commissioner's bumbling leadership over the past 14 years coupled with a misguided experiment: trying to popularize hockey in the United States.
And with last week's NHL All-Star Game garnering a miserable 672,948 American television viewers, it should be painfully clear that the experiment has failed.
The all-star game returned from a two-year hiatus, showcasing a bumper crop of new NHL superstars such as Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, each starter chosen by the fans to represent the elite amongst the bloated 30-team league. This was the new NHL: younger, faster, more exciting, complete with flashy new form-fitting waterproof uniforms for performance-conscious players and fans alike.
But nobody cared. The game had a whopping 76 per cent decrease in ratings from the 2004 all-star game, prior to the devastating lockout that wiped out an entire season.
During Bettman's troubled tenure, fans have endured glowing pucks, four team bankruptcies, three team relocations, questionable expansion and fumbled television contracts. Ironically, his single Pyrrhic victory --establishing a new collective bargaining agreement -- cost the league an entire season and more fans than anyone might have imagined until now.
Even the Pittsburgh Penguins, with perhaps the most exciting roster in the league, face an uncertain future in a stagnant American hockey market.
And although hockey in Canada will always have an audience (CBC ratings for the 2007 all-star game were six per cent higher than the 2004 match), the six Canadian teams and their supporters will continue to suffer through Bettman's embarrassing quest for hockey celebrity in the United States.
Recently, under Bettman's leadership, the league could not agree to change the unbalanced schedule, further punishing the smaller market teams in the Western Conference.
Canadian fans should expect more of the same. Hockey hotbeds such as Winnipeg and Hamilton will continue to cheer for minor-league teams while Pittsburgh contemplates the bottom line of an NHL team in Kansas City or Las Vegas. Cities such as Vancouver and Edmonton will run out of beer as their rabid fans celebrate hockey culture in the streets, while the Stanley Cup finals will occupy page seven of the sports section in the newspapers of “small-market” hockey towns in America.
So here's hoping that David Beckham and his flashy haircuts do for soccer what Gary Bettman has been trying to do for the last 14 years for hockey and make soccer the next established sport in the American market. Maybe then the NHL will re-evaluate their priorities.
It wasn't the neutral zone trap. It wasn't the clutch-and-grab style of play. And it's not even the schedule that forces some teams to travel twice as much as their divisional rivals.
Rather, it's the NHL commissioner's bumbling leadership over the past 14 years coupled with a misguided experiment: trying to popularize hockey in the United States.
And with last week's NHL All-Star Game garnering a miserable 672,948 American television viewers, it should be painfully clear that the experiment has failed.
The all-star game returned from a two-year hiatus, showcasing a bumper crop of new NHL superstars such as Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, each starter chosen by the fans to represent the elite amongst the bloated 30-team league. This was the new NHL: younger, faster, more exciting, complete with flashy new form-fitting waterproof uniforms for performance-conscious players and fans alike.
But nobody cared. The game had a whopping 76 per cent decrease in ratings from the 2004 all-star game, prior to the devastating lockout that wiped out an entire season.
During Bettman's troubled tenure, fans have endured glowing pucks, four team bankruptcies, three team relocations, questionable expansion and fumbled television contracts. Ironically, his single Pyrrhic victory --establishing a new collective bargaining agreement -- cost the league an entire season and more fans than anyone might have imagined until now.
Even the Pittsburgh Penguins, with perhaps the most exciting roster in the league, face an uncertain future in a stagnant American hockey market.
And although hockey in Canada will always have an audience (CBC ratings for the 2007 all-star game were six per cent higher than the 2004 match), the six Canadian teams and their supporters will continue to suffer through Bettman's embarrassing quest for hockey celebrity in the United States.
Recently, under Bettman's leadership, the league could not agree to change the unbalanced schedule, further punishing the smaller market teams in the Western Conference.
Canadian fans should expect more of the same. Hockey hotbeds such as Winnipeg and Hamilton will continue to cheer for minor-league teams while Pittsburgh contemplates the bottom line of an NHL team in Kansas City or Las Vegas. Cities such as Vancouver and Edmonton will run out of beer as their rabid fans celebrate hockey culture in the streets, while the Stanley Cup finals will occupy page seven of the sports section in the newspapers of “small-market” hockey towns in America.
So here's hoping that David Beckham and his flashy haircuts do for soccer what Gary Bettman has been trying to do for the last 14 years for hockey and make soccer the next established sport in the American market. Maybe then the NHL will re-evaluate their priorities.
