Five Problems Hockey Can’t Solve

Before we get to this week's column — and oh, what a column it is — I wanted to take a moment and share some news with you.

I've been writing "The Jester's Quart" since 1997, starting small (one hockey newsgroup) and eventually branching out to over 20 web sites that syndicate the column each week (and a heartfelt "thank you" to all of the editors that have supported my work over the years).

So, it's with humble elation that I announce my first book is scheduled for release in Spring 2006 by Taylor Trade Publishing:

"Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History."

It's a collection of 101 satirical and analytical essays about the most disastrous gimmicks, inventions, trends, and decisions in professional and amateur sports. And, hopefully, it'll make you laugh until you mess yourself.

I'll share more details when I have more details to share. If you ever want to give me a shout about the book or the column or life in general: [email protected].

Thanks for indulging, and for the continued readership.

And now, let's talk about...

Five Problems Hockey Can't Solve

The National Hockey League's dilemma was captured perfectly on ESPN's "Mike and Mike in the Morning" program the day after the league finally agreed to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with its players association.

The hosts began with a familiar thesis: no one cares about hockey. It's the same harangue hockey fans have heard for their entire lives, from co-workers to radio hosts to newspaper columnists to most of the paid air staff on ESPN (or at least those without mullets).

"Mike and Mike" continued, arguing that the NHL needs to attract "the casual fan" with its litany of rules changes and marketing ideas — all of which are coming from a commissioner and board of governors that haven't shown, over the last decade, they could market a bullet to a gun.

So here's the dilemma, NHL: get people who have an ingrained hatred of your very existence to start watching hockey.

Good luck.

That's not going to happen through any rules changes or extra playoff rounds or more expansion. Every single time the NHL has attempted to go after these mythical "casual" fans, the results have managed to further erode the league's popularity and alienate fans that actually watch the sport.

In the 1990s, violence sold everything from movies to television to pro wrestling to video games. Yet the NHL missed captivating an entire generation of fans by legislating fighting and physical play out of the sport with draconian rule enforcement and new measures like the instigator penalty.

Why? Because Gary Bettman and Co. felt that fighting would scare off the families in new markets. Meanwhile, the same kids dropping coin on Mortal Kombat didn't give a damn how many pirouettes Peter Forsberg could pull off before scoring a goal.

(The marketing foibles of this league all lead back to Bettman, now being viewed as the rock-ribbed negotiator who saved the NHL from financial ruin. Imagine if his testicles had descended back in 1995? The NHL might have a larger market share than Celebrity Blackjack in most American cities.)

The most frustrating part of this lockout settlement is the idiotic notion that things will be dramatically different for the NHL under the new CBA. The CBA is a good way to sure up this league in the short term — it's like hitting the reset button a bad game of Tetris. While the deal plugs up the holes in this financially sinking ship, it does little to cut several anchors that will forever prevent the league from sailing to mass popularity:

1. The Language Barrier

Hockey is not an American game, and the NHL is populated with foreign-born players who don't exactly sound like Darrell Waltrip. That limits promotion, sponsorship, and the overall popularity of the players and the game. Think about if the NBA had 50 Yao Mings instead of one, and there's the NHL. Remember all that scuttlebutt about how putting microphones on players during the game would save hockey on TV? Well, when half of your top players sound like Yakov Smirnov, what good is a live mic?

2. The Game Itself

Hockey is my favorite sport, and for my money the most exciting sport in the world. But I've been watching it all my life. And I've played the game. The same can't be said for the majority of these mythical casual fans that the media thinks the NHL needs to attract. You might get a 47-year-old baseball fan from Nebraska to appreciate hockey, but you're not getting him to watch it. And I'll stop there before we get into a Red State/Blue State debate.

3. The Arena vs. TV

The NHL's TV situation is a frustrating one. Bettman's bungling has cost the league a cable contract, and I'm pretty sure Wayne Campbell had a more lucrative TV deal with Cable 10 in Aurora, Illinois than the NHL has with NBC. (I expect, by and by the way, the NHL will move to Spike TV if the network offers cash up front. And won't those promos featuring Jarome Iginla, Jean-Luc Picard, and Gil Grissom from "CSI" be fun?)

I know HDTV is supposed to change the way we watch hockey on television. And in some ways, it does. But even that technology doesn't solve the basic problems plaguing the game on TV: camera angles that don't convey the speed and intensity of the live game, presentations that fail to inform and entertain the viewer like other sports do, and announcers that just plain suck.

4. Forcing Hockey Into Non-Hockey Markets

There are too many teams in the NHL. The reason there are too many teams is that Bettman and the owners saw expansion as a way to make a big money grab in the 1990s and as the means to a lucrative TV contract. Well, both of those revenue streams have dried up like a Martian river. So let's give some of these teams about three years and then start moving them or contracting them, shall we?

5. The Media

I've heard several talking heads claim that the NHL is now on the Arena Football/WNBA level as far as popularity. This, of course, is a bunch of crap: in 2004, 25 of the NHL's 30 teams drew over 14,000 fans per night, which ain't bad when you consider the cost of attending a hockey game and the complete bungling of the league's marketing efforts. But the fact remains that the media will forever see hockey as a niche sport because most sportswriters don't have an appreciation for the game and because the ratings on television are low. (And if the latter actually mattered, then we'd never have to read the words "Tucker Carlson" in a major newspaper again.)

The problem the NHL has to face is that there have been exactly three hockey players who crossed over into the mainstream as celebrities: Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, and Mario Lemieux. One guy was the best player of all time, and banging a model. Another guy was a New York sports hero, and banging models. And the third guy had cancer. So let's get Rick Nash to Fashion Week and hand him a few cartons of Marlboro Reds, shall we?

Rules changes and innovative marketing might solve Nos. 2 , 3, and 5. But Nos. 1 and 4 are systemic albatrosses that the NHL will have around its collective neck for decades.

So what, if anything, could bring these mythical casual fans under the NHL's tent?

Parity? I think the NHL needs parity like it needs another Canadian franchise. The leveling of the playing field for 30 teams through the salary cap and a lowered unrestricted free agency age will, in theory, create parity in a league that quite frankly doesn't need it — Calgary and Tampa Bay made the Finals last season, for God's sake. If parity does end up ruling the NHL, I can't wait for the first wave of puckhead bitching about the sorry state of the Original Six and how "nobody" wants to watch the Sabres and Blue Jackets play for the Stanley Cup.

What about a superstar on the Gretzky level? Say, someone like Sidney Crosby, the super-phenom who will be drafted first overall in this month's entry draft?

June 21's draft lottery has the potential to be one of those crossover events, where non-hockey fans are drawn to the notion that any of the league's 30 teams could end up with the chance to draft Sid the Kid. Which, of course, means the NHL will frak it up and only have it available on streaming audio from NHL.com — hell of a time to have pissed away that cable deal, eh, boys?

(By the way: am I the only one who finds it absolutely hilarious that the Devils, Red Wings, and Avalanche have the same shot at Sidney Crosby as the Islanders, Capitals, and Panthers?)

Getting the CBA done was essential, and I'm glad that's behind us.

Now comes the hard part for the NHL: either making another ill-advised attempt to be everything to everyone, or accepting the limitations the sport has and simply putting on the best show it can.

Random Thoughts

I'm convinced they ended the lockout this week to get the taste of Jason Bay's Home Run Derby performance out of Canadian mouths...

Democrats are calling for the resignation or dismissal of Presidential advisor Karl Rove, who is accused of sharing the name of a covert CIA operative with journalists as part of a smear campaign.

Man, last time there was this kind of politically disastrous leak in the White House, it ended up on Monica [Lewinsky]'s dress...

Kwame Brown is reportedly headed to the Los Angeles Lakers, thereby assuring that "The Honeymooners" is no longer the biggest flop in Hollywood this summer...

I went to the dentist this week, and I will now ask this rhetorical question: is there a worse feeling in the world than hearing someone with a mirror and a metal hook in your mouth suddenly say, "Wow! Now what's that?"

It was a cavity. A small one. A little drilling. I like that in my dentist's office they have this wallpaper that looks like the inside of an aquarium stapled to the ceiling for you to look at while you're being worked on. You know, to escape the intense pain of oral surgery by pretending you're being held captive in a large glass box in some guy's living room.

My dentist did the drilling without doing anything to numb me. Evidently, she just assumed I had watched the MLB All-Star Game and was already sedated...

Finally, Ben Jones of the old "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV series has urged fans to boycott the new film starring Jessica Simpson and Johnny Knoxville, claiming the movie's script "mocks the good clean family values of our series" with profanity and sexual situations.

Coming from a guy named Cooter, I'd take those charges seriously...

Greg Wyshynski is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].