NP : Rheostatics - P.I.N.

I found an article on ESPN.com through Offwing that I really liked. Kinda sappy, but the sorta thing that makes me want to drop everything and go put on my skates, makes me pumped up about my game tomorrow (now if only my wrist would heal properly....) and yeah.... makes me really miss the NHL right now.

"This is the time of the year when moms wear their favorite player's buttons on their sweatshirts. When signs are made, fresh film is loaded up, new batteries are installed in the digital camera and a fresh tape is put in the camcorder. When caravans of minivans roll down North America's highways anticipating the big game with nervousness and excitement. This is the time of year when hockey's heart beats quickest and strongest. The heart of the game and the soul of the game are at your local rink this month. There will be players playing this month who will go on to win Stanley Cups. Who go on to score 500 goals. And who go on to earn induction into hockey's Hall of Fame.

For those immersed in the culture of hockey, hockey is never locked out because the game is owned by the players, coaches, parents and officials. The game can never be taken away. It's always there, like the seasons. Dependable, loyal and passionate. This is youth and minor hockey."

- John Buccigross


Yeah, sappy to be sure, but there should be more columns like this, in all the papers. There was an excellent one in the National Post the day after they officially cancelled the season (the first time), I wish I could find it online somewhere.



Yeah, game tomorrow. My wrist hurts from when I got my stick jammed half way through a shot on monday night. If it still hurts during the warmup, i'll wrap alot of tape around it and hope that helps. I really don't want to have to take myself out of the game and watch from the bench.

expansion/contraction.

You know, I think what bothers alot of "traditional market" hockey fans about some of the expansion franchises isn't necessarily that they exist, but more that we're constantly being told how few people in those markets care about hockey, how pretty much everything ESPN shows gets better ratings than the Stanley Cup finals, how no one even realizes that there is no season right now, how the NHL has an absolute joke of a TV deal, and basically how people are laughing the NHL because it's trying to be one of the four major sports and yet it isn't anywhere close. So the attitude that develops is "well fine, you don't like hockey, so be it. give it back to us who actually care". It's embarrasing to love something so much, to share it with other people, and then have it pretty much flatly rejected. The attitude then becomes "well give us back the game, we'll put it in places that actually care".

Couple that with the coincidence (or not just a coincidence) that it was around the time that expansion started happening that the quality of the game dropped AND the fact that alot of traditionalists see the NHL as selling itself and The Game out by changing rules and instituting things like the Fox Trax (or whatever it was)to the game so that it can be sold to people who just don't give a flying fuck about the sport.

I like the idea of selling hockey to the rest of the world and trying to make it more popular, but I also realize that there are some places that just aren't going to take to it at all, especially when some areas have no cultural link to the game. I'm quite willing to give the expansion teams a chance, but I'm not so sure that hockey's popularity will grow regardless of how much advertising there is. I think it's too early as well to call it a failure as well, but I certainly won't be supprised if there are some areas where it just doesn't stick. Some markets seem to be doing really well, like San Jose and Columbus.... but I think the jury's still out on some other ones.