NHL Will Always Remain on Fringes

"All we are saying is give peace a chance." – John Lennon.

"All we are saying is give hockey a chance." – Gary Bettman.

We tried, Gary. And thanks largely to you, it's just not working.

Your grand plan was for hockey to take over the U.S., which since the Civil War has included the South. Sorry, but most people down here would vote to secede from the Union again if hockey ever becomes our national pastime.

I've been hearing how fabulous the NHL playoffs have been, and how they could pave the way for hockey's resurgence. So I went to a shopping mall here in Orlando and asked the first 100 people I saw about the Ovechkin-Crosby showdown.

Two said they like Ovechkin. Seven said they like Bing Crosby's recording of "White Christmas." The rest asked if I could get Tim Tebow to visit their grandmother and heal her arthritis.

I'm kidding, of course. Only 57 percent of Floridians think Tebow can raise the dead. But 99.8 percent are more interested in what he had for lunch than who'll win the Stanley Cup.

Oh, we love our ice down here as long as it's in our tea. Otherwise, it's time hockey skedaddled back North.

I hate to sound like Sheriff Buford T. Justice or some other Southern caricature. These days, if you don't embrace diversity (hockey), you're considered a buffoon or a Republican or, in this case, anti-Canadian.

I think Canada is great. If they'd move it 1,500 miles south, I'd love to live there. And I think I speak for at least a couple dozen of my fellow Southerners when I say we have nothing against hockey.

What's not to like about guys wearing switchblades on their feet pounding each other? I know there's a lot more to it than that, and about 10 years ago I tried to learn hockey's nuances. You know -- blue line, crease, Janet Jones.

I went to some games in Tampa along with about 28,000 other fans. It was a great atmosphere, even if I never actually saw the puck. I figured that would come in time.

What came was terrible ownership, a lockout and enough corporate incompetence to qualify Bettman for a seat next to Isiah Thomas on GM's Board of Directors.

No need to re-hash all that. The attendance and financial woes in South Florida, Atlanta, Phoenix, Nashville, Tampa Bay and Columbus say enough.

Even if the NHL had been run like Google, hockey would have been a tough sell down South. It would be like putting NFL teams in Stockholm, Zurich and Minsk. No matter how great the game is, most natives would still rather go ice fishing.

Down here, most people would rather attend an SEC spring football game than their own wedding. It will take far more than a 12-step program to cure that addiction. Especially if one of the steps includes finding Versus on the local cable lineup.

On mine I think it's located between C-SPAN7 and The Hysterectomy Network. Abandoning ESPN for a network with 43 viewers was classic Bettman. But the NHL is determined to make it look like a good move, hence the ratings propaganda we've been getting the past few weeks.

The league is hyperventilating over a 27.2 percent jump in viewers from last year's playoffs. My golf game is 27.2 percent better than it was last year, but all that means is I'm only losing 13 balls a round.

Versus is averaging about 584,000 viewers per game. First-round NBA playoff games on TNT were five times larger than what hockey's been getting. First-round NFL playoff games were about 80 times larger. It's not even fair to bring in Super Bowl numbers.

Bettman never said the NHL would replace the NFL. He did envision national appeal and the NHL eventually supplanting the NBA as America's No. 3 sport.

Hockey is huge in a few markets that have been around since the Ice Age. It's hard to imagine Detroit or Boston or Chicago without hockey, and I'm sure that day will never come.

Bettman cringes at the thought of moving teams to Saskatoon or Moose Jaw. They may not be sexy or top-100 Nielsen markets, but the locals would walk naked through a blizzard to see a game.

Down here they won't leave the pool to catch five minutes of Ovechkin and Crosby. I don't see how that's ever going to change.

Unless, of course, Tebow decides to play for the Lightning.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

5-13-2009 @ 8:51PM

Critic said...

I live in the South and had a hard time staying interested enough in this topic to even finish the column.

5-14-2009 @ 10:26AM

jaunvivamexico said...

THE PROBLEM WITH THE PEOPLE FROM THE SOUTH IS THAT THEY JUST CANT KEEP INTERESTED IN MUCH OF ANYTHING LONGER THEN 5 MINUTES.THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOCKEY, JUST THE BACK WOODS RED NECKS.

5-14-2009 @ 2:24PM

bristowcontract said...

I'm in total agreement!

5-13-2009 @ 8:52PM

rwing said...

As long as Gary BUTTman is running it, the NHL will always remain on the fringes. The best thing he can do for the game is FIND ANOTHER JOB!!!!!!

5-13-2009 @ 8:58PM

James said...

you MUST be kidding me with this article. I live in the south and very upset that we can't see MORE of the NHL. Bettman has nothing to do with it ... it's ESPN and the rest of the Broadcasting market that won't giveit a chance. Hockey runs through my viens and if people would go to a game they would (no doubt) fall in love with a game that has more taltent than the NBA, MLB and the NFL put together!!!!

5-13-2009 @ 9:54PM

espadon58 said...

Hockey is to fast for the people from the south,we all know you guys are a little slow.

5-13-2009 @ 10:31PM

grimslade5 said...

NASCAR

5-13-2009 @ 10:27PM

mseepsbobp said...

As a transplanted southerner (Alabama) I was introduced to hockey thru the participation of my two sons in the sport. Its faster than basketball, more physical than football and requires the skill of any major league baseball player. My sons played into their 20's and still love the sport.

When I grew up in the south, there was no soccer and today it is, I think, much more widely appreciated in the southeast. If young Alabamians played hockey at age 5 as did my sons, it would be much more widely appreciated.... but its not and there is not much to be done about that, except that if you dont like it dont worry about it.. I am certainly not worrying about whether southerners like the sport or not and it has little to do with its popularity in Canada or the northern states.

Cricket is a great game to Africans and Europeans, but not many Americans could identify a Cricket match if they saw one. That wont change its popularity in the parts of the world where its the greatest sport.

So if you dont like it in Tampa, by all means dont go.. the team will move to Cleveland or Albany where people like it. And I will still think its the best sport I have ever seen even though my current home town team has won 6 superbowls and I have seen 3 of them.... and I thoroughly enjoyed my home town team beatint the S(*(T out of the Capitals on the way to the Stanley Cup tonight.

To each his own...

5-13-2009 @ 10:28PM

Chris B. said...

Hockey is too technical for the people in the South. All they want to know is if the Blue Car with a hundred stickers all over it is in first place.

I kid.

The NHL really needs to get ESPN and other networks (other than NBC) to broadcast games and highlights. Look at an average SportsCenter telecast: 10 minutes for commercials, 18 minutes for Basketball and Baseball, and 2 minutes for hockey. Oh, and that's only if A: it's a good game (and by good game, I mean 6 goals per team, through OT and a end in a shootout), or B: it's the playoffs and they show 2 saves and a crazy goal.

If you had CBS or Fox broardcast saturday and sunday games instead of Bull Riding, Ice Skating, ATV, Skateboarding, etc, then hockey would be up there along with the other sports.

5-13-2009 @ 10:51PM

Chris B. It takes more than that.. it takes parents lacing up their kids skates for a few years ... learning about Icing and Offsides while the game is slow... and appreciating the skill of current NHL players in shooting, giving and receiving passes, and checking. Then when the kids are gone to college they have the time to actually see some NHL hockey either on the tube or in person. Until then, hockey WILL be a fring sport in the southeast.

Gary Bettman is the best Commish the NHL has ever had, but he cant sell hockey to folks in New Orleans...

5-14-2009 @ 12:34AM

hockeyfan said...

It's really simple. If yo want hockey to gain in popularity, get the officiating in order. You can't expect someone to fall in love with a game when they watch one game and see penalties called then the next one game see the refs donn't call the exact same infractions.
It seems the NHL is all about what mood the refs are in or which team they personally favor rather than what is in the rule books. THAT is why the NHL suffers so much.

You can't earn new fans when the officiating is so inconsistent. A fan learning the game sees penalties called one game and not the next for the exact same thing gets confused.
It seems the NHL is all about what mood the refs are in or what team they favor rather than what s actually in the rulebooks. THAT is why the NHL stay stagnant in gaining new interest.

5-14-2009 @ 2:50AM

Boomer said...

Why would anyone care about the opinions of people who have sex with their own cousins and/or get over the fact that they lost the war? Morons....who cares

5-14-2009 @ 7:17AM

Nancy Smith said...

The fact of the matter is ESPN turned its backs on the NHL & not the other way around. ESPN tried to get the rights again for virtually nothing & OLN (now known as Versus) made a reasonable bid for the rights & the NHL had the decision to make whether to give the rights away to ESPN or make some money off of them. The boys at Disney think they can get their way all of the time & the NHL had the audacity to say NO! So, of course, since the boys at Disney aren't making money from it.....they don't give them the time of day regarding highlights. Makes me wonder why Barry Melrose would even bother working for them. But obviously the people at Disney are small people. God, they give a full show to NASCAR, like that is compelling programming.....but they make money off of the races....so of course they get a show. ESPN is part owners of TSN in Canada, which does carry NHL games, guess ESPN is just satisfied televising Panamanian Cock Fighting or whatever crap they are showing now that they have let the great Stephen A Smith go. Don't even get me started as to what a boring crapfest Monday Night Football has become since the boys at Disney decided to WAY outbid their sister network (ABC) to carry a crappier slate of games (compared to the elite package NBC got for Sunday Nights), then of course they added a crappy crew for good measure (Tony Kornhole...please). Versus is trying to build itself up to be an alternative to ESPN & hopefully they will. For those of you who do not appreciate ice hockey, you need to attend a game sometime....it will open your eyes to what an exciting game it really is. In the ECHL, the team in Lafayette, Louisiana actually set attendance records for the league before they petered away. So, just because you are IGNORANT, INBRED, A REDNECK, or whatever the case may be, doesn't mean that hockey CAN'T work in the south. I'm from the north, but I never played hockey, and I love it! As for the south as a whole, give it to Mexico and help the USA finally move up the ladder of advanced nations! That is really the DEAD WEIGHT we need to cut!

5-14-2009 @ 7:20AM

daltonic said...

you can keep your getting warmer and having less water.
you can have your endless pig and chicken factories.
you can keep your nascar. you can keep your hurricanes and tornadoes. you can keep your kudzu and meth labs.

i'll stay up north and enjoy my hockey and maybe hit you up in feb. for spring training!

5-14-2009 @ 7:24AM

Great point! I always find it funny that the same people who say blacks should get over slavery because "it took place so long ago," are the same people who bitch that they lost the Civil War & that's why they haven't gotten back to normal ever since. I find it amusing that the same former Confederate States still rank in the bottom 10 states in about everything that is good or matters (education, healthcare, income, etc.....you name it)! The war has been over for about 150 years.....they need to "get over it." The time to get on the ball has long since passed. Though your inference to inbreeding might also explain some of it too!

5-14-2009 @ 10:44AM

Skapanza said...

Sounds like the author got frustrated when he didn't immediately understand the game and has never gone back, except to write knee-jerk articles to try and rain on the NHL's happiness about their upswing in ratings. I would ask if Whitley instantly knew and understood the minutiae of SEC football when he first started watching? Unlikely. I started watching the sport when I was ten with no background in the sport and no family members who knew a thing about it. Despite this, by the time I was 11, I had learned enough to find the glowing puck insulting.

With a little patience and persistence, one can discover a sport with the physicality that is embarassingly lacking in baseball and basketball, continuous action missing in baseball (and the NFL), and where scoring and defense matter unlike in the NBA.

But I suppose a story about growing to understand and embrace hockey doesn't make for as easy of an article as "SOUTH NO LIKE STUPID HOCKEY! LEARNING TOO HARD! GARY BETTMAN RAWR!"

5-14-2009 @ 11:31AM

drmoncure said...

The problem has been Bettman from the start.

5-14-2009 @ 11:32AM

rayray2213 said...

I just moved to Kentucky from Michigan and haven't watched a hockey game since the move. Not because I choose to not watch, but because the hockey game isn't on t.v. down here! My heart hurts.