Hockey Fix

Been a while, Chris is focused on free agency, and I haven't watched anything sports related since the Daytona 500, so yeah not much to report on. Had to work during the gold medal game of the Olympic hockey tournament last Sunday. Heard it was the most watched Olympic hockey game ever. So, now all the talking heads are wondering how the NHL can turn those viewers into NHL viewers. They all have their points, but I'm gonna give some good ideas on how to fix the NHL.

Contract the league, it has 30 teams right now, contract that to 24. If you don't know this is how hockey works, the "offense" has 4 lines of the 3 players and the "defense" has 3 lines of 2 players, plus each team carries at least 2 goalies. Not to mention guys on the bench or injured. I looked up how many players the NHL has and the number is around 950. If you eliminate 6 teams, the league will lose 190 or so, not as good players. If you can get the cream of the crop on the ice, and teams can be deeper, then the product will be better.

Make the NHL, U.S. vs. Canada, the league should have two divisions, a US division, consisisting of New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Philly Flyers, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild, Dallas Stars, Colorado Avalanche, San Jose Sharks, and either Phoenix or New Jersey for the 12th team. Try to stay out of the warm cities, kids can't play hockey in warm cities. Canada has 6 current team, Ottawa, Toronto, Monteal, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver. A few teams have left Canada in recent years so give those teams back, Qubec Nordiques and the Winnipeg Jets. That's 8 only need 4 more, not sure where they would come from but I have one idea for a team, give Alaska a team and have them play in the Canada division. I'm sure they could carry an NHL team. Anyway if you make two twelve team divisions, have 6 teams from each make the playoffs and do it up NFL, style, top 2 seeds get first round bye, play a best of 5 in the first round, best of 7 the other two rounds. Then for the Stanledy Cup, U.S. vs. Canada, even though the players will be from any country, the fan bases however will be able to root for and against their country.

Market the super stars, this is behind everyone's arguements. Who is Sidney Crosby? Who is Alex Ovechkin? Martin Brodeur or Patrick Kane? Sid the Kid is my favorite current player, plays for my team Pittsburgh, helped win the Stanley Cup last year, and scored the game winner for Canada. I heard lots of talk why wasn't Crosby doing TV after the game, I'll tell you why, because he's Canadian, what ratings would you get if you got the guy who beat America on TV? If we would've won and Kane scored it, you bet that kid would be all over TV. If the US wins that game, it would've been better for the NHL. But, to the point, we need to get these guys on TV, sign them a deal, get 'em commercials. I like Ovi, but I couldn't pick that guy out of a line up and I'm a fan of the game. I don't have the answer on how to make these guys huge, but I can see more of NHL guys face than a football players, but yet guys in the NFL are regonizable.

Get people to games, I will profess for ever and ever. Hockey is the best sport live, I've been to NFL, NBA, and MLB games, hockey games are better than all of those. I'd rather go watch the Junior team from Dubuque, than any NBA game. I'd rather watch live hockey all day, however it doesn't translate to TV. I love hockey have a hard time watching it, when I can find it, Saturday's on NBC, or is it Sunday, not sure, also what channel is VS, on TV. It just doesn't translate to the screen well. Rather it's because you can't see the puck, or what, it just doesn't make it.