Does America Need The NHL?

In my baseball preview, I mentioned that, with the NFL and possibly the NBA dealing with labor strife that could affect their upcoming seasons, this had to be the year Major League Baseball stepped up and took back the reins as America's past time. The same can also be said about the NHL.......except for one thing.

People in America don't really care about hockey.

Now, I'll admit that everything that I will write in the next few paragraphs will come off as ignorant to diehard fans of the ice rink because my hockey knowledge is not what one would consider "expansive". However, that, in a roundabout way, is kind of my point. If someone who spends his free time writing about sports, watching sports and watching shows about people talking about sports, doesn't feel compelled to learn about a sport that was once considered part of America's "Big Four", what does that say about the overall interest of professional hockey? I'm not saying that my interest is more desired than anyone else's but if I, a avid sports fan, represent the everyman and the everyman doesn't really care much about the sport of hockey, where does hockey stand overall in the hearts of people in this country?

That question inspired this week's "Dumb Honest Question of the Week".

Does America need the NHL anymore?

Let's think about where sports has gone since the NHL came back from strike in 2005.

Is the NHL more popular now than the NFL, NBA, or MLB? Absolutely not, but then again, they probably never were even back during the Wayne Gretzky-Mario Lemieux days.

How about MMA, which has seen a meteoric rise over the last half-decade while hockey was getting back into the swing of things? Is the NHL more popular than the UFC? Monthly pay-per-view numbers and the success of shows like "Ultimate Fighter" would say no.

Then, there's the minuscule sports that hockey probably gets the W over.

Boxing? Absolutely, unless Mayweather-Pacquiao is somehow scheduled during the Stanley Cup.

Tennis and Golf? Probably, with the exception of when Tiger Woods was at the peak of his popularity or if Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal or the Williams' sisters are battling out in Wimbledon(or, going back a little further, when Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras were in their prime, but even then hockey may have had tennis beat).

Pro wrestling and NASCAR? In the North, yes. Down south, definitely not.

Another issue with the NHL is the lack of TV exposure. These days, you can only find a regular season hockey game on Versus or the NHL Network or the occasional Sunday nighter on NBC. Even playoff coverage of the NHL isn't on a major network. Versus is in less households than DVD copies of "Glitter"(OK, that may be a stretch, but you get my point) and they are carrying the most important games of the hockey season. Could you imagine the NFL's postseason ratings if only 60% of America could watch the Super Bowl from home? If major networks like ESPN would rather air bowling tournaments or spelling bees over a Penguins-Capitals tilt, doesn't that say something about their lack of faith in the NHL to draw ratings? Maybe the lack of hockey exposure is more ignorance on the part of cable companies than a death knell to the league, but where's the overwhelming clamoring for commissioner Gary Bettman to lock down a deal with a major network? Where's the outrage from fans who have to watch their sport get bracketed between bull riding and a re-airing of Caddyshack on Versus? Think about all the buzz the potential NFL lockout is getting now from fans and writers who dread a fall season without pigskin, did the NHL register an eighth of the reaction in 2004 that the NFL is dealing with now?

The ill effect of having no major network coverage on the NHL can't be stressed enough. Fans of other sports know where to go when they want to watch a game. You want football? Try FOX or CBS or NBC on Sundays and ESPN on Mondays(on mute, of course, unless you like the ridiculous jargon of Jon Gruden). You like basketball? You can find the NBA four or five nights a week on TNT or ESPN. Want to watch baseball? ESPN carries a couple games a week. So does FOX and TBS. As for the NHL, who wants to shell out a couple hundred bucks extra for The NHL Network, in this economy, to watch what other sports are broadcasting for much cheaper?

My solution? Move the NHL out of the US and make it an international sport. I don't hate hockey, but you can't expect Americans to get into your sport if they have no simple means to watch it. That's why we don't care about soccer. Like soccer, most Americans only care about hockey every four years so that they have a reason to express fake patriotism and root for the US to prove their dominance on other countries(the same goes for Americans during the World Cup or Olympic soccer. The only time people ever cared about Mia Hamm is when there was a gold medal and bragging rights at stake. We're an arrogant, materialistic country.). It also doesn't help that the teams that tend to dominate in the NHL share cities with teams that dominate in other sports. My friend Sean loves hockey and all of Pittsburgh sports(yup, even the Pirates), but he's not watching the Penguins over the Steelers, nor is any Pittsburgh resident from October to February. The Blackhawks may be the defending Stanley Cup champs, but all of that celebrating in Chicago will be dwarfed if the Bulls make an NBA Finals run. New Yorkers don't care about the Rangers now that Carmelo is a Knick and the Yankees are poised to make another World Series run. The only real major city that cares about the NHL over other sports during hockey season is Detroit and that's because their other option is the Lions. If Ndomukong Suh becomes the next Warren Sapp and Matt Stafford the next John Elway, it's going to be bye-bye Red Wings.

So you take hockey out of America. Instead of the Los Angeles Kings, you have the Hamburg Monarchs or the Moscow Capitals. People in L.A. stopped caring about the Kings after Gretzky left anyway and hockey doesn't register a blip on Hollywood's radar so long as Kobe is still running the Lake Show. There's 30 teams in the NHL, 24 of them in the U.S. Chop that number from 30 down to about 20, put a couple more teams in Canada, and then spread the rest throughout Sweden, Finland, Russia, Germany, France and any of the other hot beds for the NHL's elite talent. I know moving hockey out of America is yet another kick in the nuts to Buffalo sports fans but if the Bills are willing to move to Canada, then Sabres fans should be too. If you're going to make Americans pay good money to watch hockey, it better be because it has to be filmed through grainy, European cameras across the pond. Americans will fake outrage for a few weeks, but once the NFL gets their shit together and we have football back in the fall, all of that manufactured pain will dissolve quickly. Let Canada have Sidney Crosby back, where he can be fully appreciated. It's the least we can do for giving us Elisha Cuthbert(although we should penalize them for giving us Justin Bieber, too).

As someone who tries every day to get this blog off the ground and into the eyes of the masses, the success of your product is contingent on exposure. If Alexander Ovechkin was standing behind you in a coffee shop in SoHo, you probably wouldn't recognize him. Most New Jersey residents think Zach Parise is a cast member from "The Sopranos". If the NHL isn't going to work hard to give hockey to every American, then America needs to give it the boot. People still care about Manchester United or AC Milan eventhough they don't step foot on U.S. soil very often. The NHL could survive without America. It's been doing it for the last six years.