It’s no secret the NHL lags behind the big three in ratings.  While in my heart, I would love to see hockey surpass baseball in American popularity, my head tells me I have a better chance of seeing the Rangers win another Stanley Cup.  (And that quickly, the truth about me comes out.)  But don’t kid yourself America, the NBA is well within reach.  Which is exactly my point.  I do not want to see the NHL make the same mistakes the NBA has with the way it markets its stars.  

I represent the average American sports fan (with a slight bias towards hockey.)  I love football, baseball, NASCAR crashes, and my basketball preference leans towards college.  It’s not that I’m anti-NBA, it’s just that as a late-1990’s graduate of the University of Maryland, I just value an ACC battle of top-10’s (or any conference,) as entertainingly superior.  

Because I’m more of a hockey fan than average, the NHL doesn’t need to sell me.  I’ll watch the Winter Classic, the playoffs, the regular season, or preseason games in Finland.  But more importantly, I don’t need to see Crosby, Ovechkin, or both to know the possibility of a great game exists.  Unfortunately, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has not gotten that message.  

The NBA and NHL have always been leagues whose popularity have been dominated by its stars.  In the NBA, Jordan, Magic, Bird, Malone, Barkley, and Ewing have given way to the likes of LeBron, Kobe, Wade, Carmelo, Nash, and Duncan.  The NHL doesn’t quite have it that easy.  Household names are a little harder to come by on the ice.  Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Lindros, Jagr, and Roenick, have given way to Crosby, Ovechkin, and… sure I could mention Henrik Sedin, Marion Gaborik and Patrick Marleau, but could you?  And therein lies the problem.  

Jeremy Roenick, it should be noted, gained nationwide prominence when Vince Vaughn led his Sega Genesis, NHL-93 avatar, to knocking Wayne Gretzky’s out into a twitching pool of blood, before leading Jeremy’s avatar to the game-winning goal in a heated game in 1996’s ultimate guy movie, Swingers.  (Vaughn gave the credit where it was rightfully due.)  “It’s not so much me as it is Roenick.  He’s good.”  That may be the biggest understatement since, “Houston we have a problem.”   Anyone above the age of 30 can attest that Roenick and his NHL-93 Blackhawks may have given the 2010 Blackhawks a serious run.  

So the post-lockout NHL, which was (and still is) a delicate egg,  is still trying to bring Joe America back.  The league added the shootout, removed the two-line pass, started calling a ton more penalties, and added a trapezoid of uselessness behind the goal, all in an attempt to boost offense and make the game more exciting to Joe America.  With the exception of the trapezoid, all the other rule changes have been great.  Let me say right now, as a Rangers fan, and even with losing a 2010 playoff berth to the Flyers in a shootout with them, I am still wholeheartedly in favor of it, even in such a monumental situation.  Am I bitter that the Flyers took that shootout win and went onto the Stanley Cup Finals?  Absolutely.  But only because they are from Philadelphia, and not because they were one skills competition highlight better than my team.

In addition to the rule changes, the league has also been blessed with two new superstars in Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin.  As I mentioned before, there is nothing wrong with marketing them (and of course their respective teams.)  But there ARE other stars in the league.  The rivalry between the two is strong, but it is mostly engineered.  For example, they play in different divisions, and although they have both been in the league together for five seasons now, and Penguins and Capitals have only met in the playoffs once.  

I was nauseous when an NHL.com poll declared the 2009 meeting, the greatest series ever played.  Hello?  1994 Eastern Conference Finals anyone?  I agree it was entertaining, but is the greatest series ever played supposed to have its seventh game decided by four goals?  Of course not.  It should end in double overtime by a guy picked up at the trading deadline who could have had his #32 hoisted to the Madison Square Garden rafters if that was the only goal he ever scored.  (Stefan Matteau’s number has yet to be retired.) 

Sidney Crosby needs no more hyping by the league, nor does he need any more love and attention from the hockey gods.  Before his 23rd birthday, he scored the shootout winning goal in the NHL’s first ever Winter Classic (in a blinding snowstorm,) captained his team to the Stanley Cup, and scored the Olympic gold medal winning goal, in overtime of course.  In other words, he accomplished the triple crown of childhood street hockey fantasies we’ve all dreamed about while hoisting the Rubbermaid Cup in the driveway in front of a tattered, red PVC pipe goal.  What, like you haven’t?  The gold medal winner, I might add, was scored in front of the highest number of Americans salivating for hockey since that glorious afternoon in 1980, when the Cold War was fought on its most unlikely, and…coldest of battlefields in Lake Placid, New York.  Of course I believe in miracles.  I’ve already said I’ve seen the Rangers win it all.  

While Ovechkin has yet to hoist Lord Stanley’s Grail, or achieve Olympic fame, he is only five years into what is sure to be a long and successful career, in which he has scored 100+ points in four of those.  What’s more, he is a human highlight reel.  More exciting to watch, and every bit as dangerous with the puck as Gretzky ever was.  

So this article comes on the heels of the announcement of the NHL’s fourth annual goldmine, also known as the Winter Classic, which this New Years Day, will feature the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins from Heinz Field.  Although the announcement confirmed months of internet chatter, that did not make it any less infuriating.  Sure a Crosby, Ovechkin matchup seemed inevitable, but it is not necessary.  The NHL has one game that Joe America will be watching: the Winter Classic.  (Now we just need to work on the other 81.)  This will be the fourth installment, and already Crosby’s Penguins’ second appearance.  Unfair?   Absolutely.  The ratings were just fine for the two that did not involve Sid the Kid.  And if the NHL bills the game as some kind of dream matchup (which I’m sure they will,) how will they sell Joe on the 2012 game, that won’t feature either of them?  (At least it had better not.)  If Joe becomes accustomed to seeing one or both of them in this game, he may get disappointed in tuning in one year to see neither.  Even worse, he won’t watch any indoor games that don’t involve Sid and/or Alex.  Because these two are far superior to every other player?  Of course not.  Because these are the only two that Joe is being told by the league are worth watching.   So a possible 2012 game could very well feature the Rangers and Canadiens in a classic, Original Six battle on a frozen Yankee Stadium infield.  Hockey purists and Yankee fans alike get chills at the sound of that.  Will Joe know what Original Six means? Will he be disappointed and turn the game off when he doesn’t see #87 or #8?  I fear he will if the league does not wise up and accept the fact that there are more players worth watching than Sid and Alex.  

And this is the mistake the NBA made.  Like I said, I represent Joe America.  As a child of the 80’s, I know that a Lakers, Celtics finals is as good as it gets.  But for the last two years I’ve been told that Kobe and LeBron are everything.  LeBron’s last stand in Cleveland before free agency finally hit was everything.  I was told I was getting a Los Angeles/Cleveland, Kobe/Lebron finals.  Well it didn’t happen.  I had to settle for Lakers/Celtics. 

Mr. Ice Guy, 

Scott Blander