Last week, I was in a sports bar having dinner and I glanced up at one of the many LCD TV screens around the place. And I saw some hockey player skating around triumphantly with the Stanley Cup. I had no idea who was playing in the finals. I couldn't really tell who won. (Yes, now I know it was the Detroit Red Wings) I was completely clueless that this was even happening anymore.
Hockey had finally reached a zero level of relevance with me. And I am guessing that's the case with a lot of people.
I used to follow the sport a bit. In college, I became friends with a bunch of hockey fans who lived and breathed with the sport. There were Ranger season tickets all over the place and regular novenas said to St. Eddie Of Giacomin. To fit in with some bunch of lunatics, I started to get involved. My college roommate took me to my first game and I actually enjoyed it, especially since I got to see a very rare penalty shot.
To be the ultimate rebel, I adopted the New York Islanders as my team, and a few of us even bought season tickets to their games. They won a bunch of Stanley Cups long before the bloated New York Rangers, who had not enjoyed a championship season since Jesus was in short pants at the temple. For some bizarre reason, this excited me, although I had no idea why. I got so enamored with it all that I even went on a bus trip to Montreal with the Rangers Fan Club, which will never ever be mistaken for Alcoholics Anonymous. We were loaded onto some school bus like they had just introduced school desegregation in Quebec. The trip became even more memorable when one of my traveling friends got so drunk that he sat down in a Glens Falls' Howard Johnson restaurant phone booth and flooded it with his own sick.
I was on board with all this nonsense simply because everybody else was. It's probably how friendships form in a mental hospital. And, years later in retrospect, I had an epiphany.
I really didn't like hockey at all. No, really. I couldn't give a rat's ass about any of it. Think about this sport. You can't watch it on television. Most of the players have names you can't pronounce, let alone spell. Most of them have "summer teeth." Some are there, some aren't. And none of the rules or penalties make a lot of sense, which is a moot point since the referees only call them when they feel like it. And, for all those reasons, you can understand why the sport never got a footing in this country. Certainly, professional soccer hasn't either. But, at the same time, the latter sport is what most school kids play these days. You don't see a lot of youngsters strapping on a helmet and loading in a bite plate for a quick game of hockey during recess.
Let's face it. In America, nobody gives a shit. If your local hockey arena seats 19,000 people, that's exactly how many hockey fans there are in that city. No more, no less. And, while Wayne Gretzky raised the level of popularity a bit, he is now gone and now the whole sport is merely a flatline on the national sports scene.
Whatever interest they gained over the past several decades, the hockey powers-that-be managed to kill. Even I was surprisingly sliding back in. Several years ago, I Christmas-gifted a pair of Los Angeles Kings tickets to Mr. Anonymous of the Barbara Judith Deluxe Furnished Apartments on Hollywood Boulevard. We went to the game and had a terrific time in our seats right next to the penalty box. Oddly, we talked about doing this several times more. It was that much fun.
A few weeks later, the hockey players went on strike and effectively cancelled almost one entire season of games. Now I was really done. And I am thinking that a lot of other folks agreed with me. Hell, they didn't need any of us. Most of the players don't speak English anyway.
Last minute of play in the sport. Good riddence.
Dinner last night: Chicken Sandwich.
Tomorrow.....from NYC again.
5 comments:
My name is Bob and I am a recovering hockey fan.
From the time I went to my first game (Saturday afternoon January 4, 1964. Rangers 5, Red Wings 2; side balcony seats at the Old Garden) until January 1985 I lived and died with the Rangers.
Then they fired Herb Brooks, my favorite coach…one who actually dared to play a European style that didn’t just dump the puck in and go get it. Puck possession was the key.
But in the xenophobic world of the NHL, anything that isn’t the North American style isn’t good enough (yes, that still goes 23 years later. Have you seen Don Cherry’s rants on ESPN?).
And the fighting. What nonsense. The traditionalists say “it’s part of the game.” Well, I’m a football fan and blows to the head, late hits, and other cheap shots used to be part of the game. They aren’t anymore. Football is better because of that.
Yes, I still get sucked in from time to time. I was happy when Messier scored the hat trick at New Jersey, very pleased when Matteau scored in double OT to get them to the finals (though I was in the Bronxville movie theater while it happened, watching “Four Weddings and a Funeral”), and I was delighted when they won the Cup.
Then came the first lockout, on the heels of SI doing a story on how the NHL was hotter than the NBA.
Can you say “I don’t think so?”
And by the way, if you don’t think xenophobia is still king in the NHL, Don Cherry’s commentary on the night Detroit won the Cup this year was as follows (I’m paraphrasing):
“The Europeans have been over here for what, 20, 30 years, and this is the first time a European captain has won as Stanley Cup. Doesn’t that tell you something?” Meanwhile Steve Levy and Barry Melrose stood there chuckling. If the Calgary Flames had won the Cup in 2004, do you think Cherry would have had the stones to say that about Jarome Iginla?
Yes, Don. It tells me something. It tells me all I need to know about the NHL. I’m done.
As they say in AA......
Hi, Bob.
I was trying to become a hockey fan and got blindsided by the strike. Is there a 12 step group for me? My one hockey game is still a happy memory. Dodgers here I come.
Since I now work for the league but have spent my entire life as a fan ...
It must be a great support to survive the people who run it.
Dealing with hockey players is light years easier than dealing with athletes from other sports (which I've also done). By and large, they are polite people who, when asked a reasonably intelligent question, will offer a reasonably intelligent answer. Dealing with the Red Wings and Penguins in the Finals was surprisingly pleasant.
The game itself has improved since the lockout (we call it a labor action - but it was definitely not a players strike, like baseball's 1994 outage). The ratings are getting better, the Internet traffic is on the upswing, and (sorry) most of them do speak English.
Is it perfect? Hell, no. But it's getting better after falling into a hole that nearly killed it.
All good points, Puck, and thanks for the inside intel.
Still I think there's a marketing problem that they will never solve.
And they could have had me for real.....heck, there was a guy on the Kings with my last name!
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