Yes, it's that time of year again! We know it's spring because the Leafs are out... of the Stanley Cup playoffs. But the defending champions, the Florda Panthers, will face off in about nine hours against the Edmonton Oilers, last year's runner-ups... runners-up?... the team the Panthers beat last year. The competition will be fierce, yet fewer and fewer Americans will be watching. Our National Sports (as long as it's hockey) Editor, Poor Len Canayen, thinks he knows why.
IMHO it's not the quality of the hockey being played, let alone the sport itself, that's to blame. The NHL is suffering from a flawed business proposition, advocated for decades now by (((Gary Bettmann))), the American lawyer who never laced on a pair of skates, yet has tenure as Commissioner (read: boss) of the National Hockey League.
From Day One, Mr Bitchman argued that the only way to grow the sport was to put teams in locales other than the US northeast. He encouraged the establishment of teams in such sun-drenched climes as Raleigh NC, Atlanta and Nowheresville AZ.
The Atlanta franchise failed twice and was moved to Calgary. The Arizona team, which had neither a permanent home nor more than two die-hard fans (Sid and Doris Bonkers), was moved this year to Utah... Utah!... because Gary wouldn't cave to pressure to restore the Québec team which he'd moved to Colorado.
The Carolina Hurricanes, based in Raleigh, got into the playoffs and played to SRO crowds. The Florida Panthers generally attract good crowds, because their home base is in Sunrise, part of Fort Lauderdale, where the majority of residents are Canadians.
But does anyone watch the southern teams on TV? Nah. If you lived in North Carolina or Florida or Dallas, would you want to be sitting indoors of a warm May or June evening watching hockey? Fuggedabahtit.
That NHL viewership is in decline has to do with the business of TV sports rather than the location of the teams or the quality of the games. Today's hockey telecasts are carefully produced to fill three hours of air time, even though actual playing time is just one hour!
To pad out the allotted time, each 20-minute period is interrupted by three -- count `em, 3 -- "TV timeouts", which are filled with commercials. Then there are the two 15- or 20-minute intermissions, in which a panel of progessional gabbers tell us what we've just seen. The same thing happens before we get to watch the singing of the national anthems the puck drops, and afterwards, if the game finishes early.
Whoever's responsible for these incredibly boring TV shows obviously doesn't understand the audience. Today's young people -- the millennials and gen-whatevers -- have the attention spans of mosquitoes. They won't, they can't sit still for a quarter-hour of dreck. When I saw "Virtual PK" Subban on ABC/ESPN, I nearly broke my wrist changing the channel. More about ESPN's "colour(ed) commentator" later today.
Yes, there are still die-hard traditionalists in Canada and the northeastern states who still watch hockey on TV. But was aren't as tech savvy as the kids, and less likely to subscribe to streaming services and specialty channels like Amazon's Monday night hockey or the Bank of Nova Scotia's Wednesday night version. And we resent being asked to pay extra... or anything... for what used to be free!
Putting business and the almighty dollar -- the almighty US dollar, that is -- ahead of sport has just about killed hockey, at least on TV. Maybe that's not so bad. Hockey is best viewed (as well as played) outdoors, in sub-zero temperatures (the ice is faster, then) or at least in an old, unheated barn designated as the Soandso Memorial Arena. Hockey isn't just another "entertainment product". It's a sport!
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