Return from the Depths

My true love is to talk about sports and to share my opinion with all those who care to listen, yet of late I have forsaken that love and probably lost all those who were interested in reading what I had to say anyways…

Irregardless I am back and hopefully better than ever. Furthermore, I suspect over the next little while I will have much more time to write as I will be undergoing knee arthroscopy to fix a torn meniscus that was the result of my athletic clumsiness.

My first love is hockey and I realize I have written far too few entries on it throughout the course of the year…But now that the NHL is running into the stretch drive, I have some opinions for all those who care to listen.

I am always interested in the inner workings of the NHL, for a number of reasons. It is the one sports league that has been a constant in my life since I started to become a sports fan and it is also the one league I think I understand the best. Is the league perfect? – not even close. Is the league always interesting? – even for the most hardcore of fans, unfortunately no. Can the league be better? – unquestionably yes.

Now to the casual observer the sport of hockey is not necessarily the easiest to comprehend…there are certain aspects that are a mystery to people around the world. Hockey will never match the "beautiful game" for fans worldwide unless we somehow dive into a 2^nd Ice age… Which may be more and more likely by the day but as it stands right now remains years and years away. Soccer is a great sport for a number of reasons, the first and foremost being its simplicity. There is a ball, two teams, two nets…the team with the most goals wins. Most importantly it can be played virtually anywhere, on virtually any surface, and with any number of players. Whereas when you look at hockey you need sticks and a ball at the very least…soccer you just need a ball, a rock, an oversized pumpkin, etc. However when you consider hockey relative to football, baseball, golf, it’s a sport most people can pick up rather quickly. Hockey is a fast, impact filled sport that is when played at the highest level nearly unmatched for entertainment value.

Taking that into consideration its growth is heavily reliant on building interest in places where hockey or at least ice hockey is extremely hard to play given climate conditions. Which makes growing the popularity of the sport difficult.

That being said….what can this less than casual observer say about the state of the NHL at present….well welcome to the crux of this post, here are in my less than humble opinion some of the things the NHL needs to do:

1. Fire Gary Bettman – as much as he may have led the owners through the lockout in a strong and authoritative fashion he has caused as much damage to the sport as he has done good. A review of the initiatives he has put in place since the beginning of his tenure and one can see that he is easily batting less than 50%. However, this is not the biggest issue I have with him. Mr. Bettman may not be the cause but he was at the helm of the ship during 2 strikes/lockouts. Bettman's heavy handed tactics and hardline negotiations may have won him a few battles but clearly both of those events have resulted in more damage than good for the league and its profile. Secondly, I strongly believe that to understand and market the game you should at a bare minimum have played it, owned or run a team, or have experienced the inner workings of the league office by working your way up throught it. Unlike the best organisations the NHL hired from outside and in all good organizations much like the NHL talent should be mined from within.
2. Roll the dice – There are few undersaturated markets in North America as it stands but for the NHL and professional sports I can certainly think of a couple. First and foremost the NHL needs to be the first major North American league to enter the Vegas market. The opportunity there is tremendous, the millions of tourists that flow through that city on an annual basis would expose the game to a new sort of fan and hopefully grow its appeal beyond the usual borders. It is only a matter of time before sports leagues get over their self-righteousness and enter into one of the biggest entertainment markets in the World, if the NHL can imbed itself first its stands to gain significant ground.
3. Market the game in new ways – Coming back from the lockout the NHL made a significant mistake in creating commercials that showed the game more like a movie than a sport. In its advertisements the league needs to highlight and showcase each team’s stars in new and unique ways. Outside of the usual commercials the NHL would be well-served to find a new way to pull fans in. In the UK there is an immensely popular program called Footballer’s Wives that for as much as it may showcase soccer it really is a unique spin on a Grey’s Anatomy or O.C. type programming. While it is already in the works to convert that into a program about American football there is no reason to think that the NHL cannot intertwine its sport into some variation of primetime programming. I do not hesitate for one second to think that with the serious lack of unique sitcoms out that one base loosely on hockey players or a professional hockey team could not potentially take hold.
4. Maximize youTube – the NHL was without a doubt a first mover in using the electronic medium like youTube to showcase its talent and highlight plays to a wider audience. However now the NHL needs to take the next step and look at making live game footage available free of charge over the internet. The technology exist and advertising can be built into the online streaming video so that it can be a revenue maker. The number one challenge hockey faces is not having a national hold in the US, casual and hardcore hockey fans are forced to struggle to find or watch the games they are interested in. If the NHL could create a way to make their product available more readily it would drive interest, create new fans, spur merchandise sales, and add to fan appeal.
5. Minimize the schedule and maximize the effort – This is by far the toughest to implement in a league whose financial viability is driven by the “gate”. Each team in the league drives its revenue through ticket sales, concessions, and broadcast rights. Hockey teams, in particular those that long playoff runs can play up to 125 games in a year, not to count the number of practices as well. For a sport as physically demanding as hockey you are dilution the product by not allowing players to compete at the highest level every night. I would suggest reducing the season by 7 games. Each team should play 5 times against each division rival (20 games) 2-3 times with each conference rival (25) and twice against the opposing conferences (30) for a total of 75 games in a season. Additionally playoffs should be reduced to best of 5 in the first two rounds and best of 7 in the final two. Overall this would mean that teams would now play closer to 110 games a year which may not seem like much of a difference but is much more reasonable to me.