Losing its Luster...

Okay, so I’ve figured out my role here at Say Something Funny, Mike: I’m the NHL apologist. Mike hates the Yankees, Mr. Shin is contrarian for contrarian’s sake(I love Contrarian Shin, bee-tee-dubs), and I’m the guy who wants the NHL to be as rampantly popular as hockey is in Canada….or as popular as watching vapid imbeciles on television is in the United States.

This past week, Rick Rypien of the Vancouver Canucks was involved in a scuffle during play at the Minnesota Wild and subsequently ejected from the game. On his way off the ice to the locker room, he attacked a Minnesota fan who was doing nothing more than clapping.

Rypien got ejected, was walking to the locker room, and roughed up the first Minnesota fan he saw. The guy in the stands was not shouting at Rypien, he wasn’t gesturing towards Rypien, and he certainly wasn’t provoking Rypien in any way, shape, or form. By no means is this a Ron Artest sort of incident, but I think that for the NHL, it’s a very big deal.

I already wrote about how the league has an opportunity within the next year to really boost their visibility on the American sports landscape. I honestly feel that if handled carefully, the NHL can grab a huge portion of the sports fans who are craving good athletic competition and hang onto them for years.

Let it also be known that I can’t stand the way Gary Bettman has mis-managed the NHL as his time as commissioner, but that’s another blog post for another day. Here, the NHL had a chance to cover up what could be a HUGE black eye for the sport. Instead of ensuring that something like this rarely happens again, the league dropped the ball. Rypien was suspended for six games.

If you’ve been to an NHL game recently, you know that it is incredibly expensive just to buy tickets. In fact, the NHL locked out in the 2004-2005 season in order to put into place a salary cap and stop the financial bleeding that NHL owners claimed was going on with their clubs. Clearly, that didn’t work.

Regardless, no matter how much I pay to go sit and watch an NHL game, I…in no way shape or form…should be subject to being physically attacked by some knuckle-dragging meathead. I know that some fans feel entitled when they attend a sporting event. They feel that since they pay the players’ salaries with their ticket purchase, that they can say and do whatever they want. Heck, I’m guilty of flipping off Corey Schwab during the Devils 2003 Cup run (really, Corey Schwab was terrible). But there’s a world of difference between acting like a total jerk at a game and just being an innocent bystander to someone who’s incredibly upset that his NHL career is nothing more than a joke as a $500,000 “enforcer”.

The fact of the matter is this: if a guest complains about the meal they were served at a restaurant, the cook would never come out from the kitchen and rough them up. If a woman makes a comment about the haircut she receives at a salon, she doesn’t get scalded with a straightening iron by the stylist. Any good business knows that the customer is ALWAYS right. Try physically assaulting a customer at the place you work and see how quickly you get FIRED.

Rypien shoving a fan was absolutely uncalled for. He should be suspended, for at the very least, half the season. The league wouldn’t miss him, and nobody else would dare try to do this again. But rest assured, the NHL did the right thing here. I mean, Commissioner Bettman called the fan up, apologized over the phone, and sent him tickets to a game and an offer for a free dinner. Problem solved, right?

The NHL’s Golden Opportunity is already losing its luster.

A Golden Opportunity

Let it be known that I am NOT a fan of football. I’m not even talking about college or pro football, in particular. I just don’t like the sport. I’ll watch the Giants if there is nothing else on, and I root for them in the playoffs….but come the fall I’m more concerned with playoff baseball, Ryder Cup golf (every two years), and more importantly, the National Hockey League.

I love hockey with all of my heart, and soul, and some of my duodenum. But I don’t feel the same way as most Americans do about the game. Pro Hockey is really not one of the major sports in this country anymore. It really had its heyday(s) in the 60s and again in the 80s. Although now, I would think it safe to say that Mixed Martial Arts, Poker, NASCAR, Soccer, and maybe even the Lingerie Football League (sarcasm…although it IS awesome) are more prominent in the forefront of the American sports consciousness than hockey is.

However, come next year that might not be the case. About 365 days from now, there is a possibility that BOTH the NFL and the NBA will lock out. If the NFL locks out, ESPN estimates that they could lose over $1 billion in revenues. And that makes sense because football is king in this country, all year round. Basketball has become an extremely globalized game. Certain NBA teams are major draws, not only in their local and national market, but around the world. When baseball ends in November, basketball and football are the sports to watch. If they both lock out and don’t bring in scrub players, then hockey has a GOLDEN opportunity to claim a lot of viewership who are craving good athletic competition.

There’s no denying that the 2010 Vancouver Olympics helped give hockey a great boost (in terms of relevance) in North America. The USA beats Canada in pool play, and then the two rematch for the Gold Medal. Zach Parise (United States) scores the game-tying goal with seconds to play and then, (who else, but?) Canada’s boy Sidney Crosby scores the game winner in overtime. Then, to follow that up, you have a Stanley Cup tournament filled with incredible upsets (the 1, 2 and 3 seeds in the East were all upset in the 1^st round), even more incredible comebacks (Philly defeats Boston in the Conference Semifinals after being down 3 games to none), and a Cup final that received one of the highest television ratings in what seems to be eons. Couple that with a very tumultuous offseason (e.g. Ilya Kovalchuk & the Devils) and you’ve set yourself up for a 2010-2011 campaign that should prepare the league for a great opportunity in 2012.

What I fail to understand is how hockey is not popular given the nature of the game. It’s incredibly fast (unlike baseball, football, and to a lesser extent, basketball which have frequent stoppages); the puck is constantly moving (again, baseball is broken up into pitches, and have you actually calculated how infrequently the football is in play during an NFL game?); hockey players are large, fast, strong and incredibly agile; there are absolutely crushing hits and bodychecks every few seconds; and once in a while you’re treated to a good fight (forget what Gary Bettman says, MMA is popular and people actually want to see fights. No need to be overly “family friendly”).

If the NHL doesn’t tinker with its product much more, they understand that they can really highlight some great young talent in the league (Crosby, Ovechkin, Stamkos, Doughty, Toews, Stastny, Tavares, Dubinsky, Parise, Getzlaf…the list goes on), really play up all the amazing charitable work that hockey players are doing, and stop shooting themselves in the foot in terms of promoting the game (i.e. turning down ESPN’s lower offer for more money on OLN, refusing to let players attend major televised events, etc)…they have an opportunity to not only become relevant again but regain their popularity and save such a once great sport from slipping into obscurity. Don’t blow it, Bettman!