Until Sunday, I hadn’t watched a hockey game in years.
Joke is on me, right?
Sorry puckheads, it’s been a fringe sport for some time. It can’t be debated.
It’s not your fault though, fanatics.
If the NHL can figure out a way to produce a product resembling what a record television audience saw Sunday, I will sit outside Jobing.com Arena with a jersey of whatever player name you want — Bryzgalov, Vrbata — and hunger strike to make sure the Coyotes stay in the Valley.
OK, you’re right, I won’t hunger strike. It would be impossible with delicacies in my hand, because I will literally go to the black market — err, exotic dead animal store — and pick me up sizeable vermin and octopus, and hurl some at the executive offices until the ink dries.
The ink on the deal, not the window. I’m sure the latter will force the former.
They don’t throw delectable animals on the ice anymore, and that’s just a stupid gimmick by a couple of fan bases. One that ended a decade ago? I have no idea.
So I don’t have a very stable reference point for the NHL product.
But I can’t trust those freaks muttering to each other in what can only be described as a Slavic dialect.
Sorry, I don’t speak hockey.
Some hockey fans tell me that the only problem with the game is not a problem with the game at all, but with the lack of exposure.
If it wasn’t on ESPN, ABC or NBC, it never happened.
Some say that’s not true in today’s world of fragmented audiences.
Nothing says hockey like a mullet with hair pomade. Maybe Barry Melrose did carry the game through its darkest hour.
And maybe we just saw the beginning of a slick revival.
Sunday night was sick.
Better than the hype, and I didn’t watch the first game.
Here is what NHL commission Gary Bettman said about the game in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
“The 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver served as the latest affirmation that the quality of our play — and our players — is the finest in the world. As every member of the gold and silver medal teams plays for an NHL club, the speed and skill of our outstanding athletes and our game remains on display as the excitement of our season resumes.”
After Sunday, it’s a hard point to dispute.
And he’s talking about banning NHL players from participating in the 2014 Olympics.
Maybe the exposure of this year’s games served its purpose.
Maybe it’s a lot more complicated.
Does the NHL need a better marketing plan?
Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, as I’ve been told, are the Kobe and LeBron of hockey, but maybe my eye isn’t keen enough to recognize a branding plan for them.
Or maybe I’m gullible and Sunday was a tease.
I’d love to find out. But I don’t have Versus.
Reach Nick at nick.ruland@asu.edu
