Archive for August, 2010

Hey, remember February?

Long time ago. Snow and things.

But the part you might remember is Vancouver’s Olympics. Hockey. Ryan Miller vs. Roberto Luongo. Overtime.  Sidney Crosby dumping it in the net. And an entire nation going completely insane.

Now, I’m not trying to rub that whole Canada-USA thing in. (Although I totally could.)

But here’s a question: Would you have cared as much if the game was being held at 4 a.m. in Russia instead of prime time in Vancouver?

The NHL is pretending you wouldn’t have. The NHL says it’s too disruptive to shut down for two weeks. The NHL says it’s too hard on their players. The NHL doesn’t want to let their players play anymore.

If you read between the lines, what the millionaires running the NHL are really saying is that they don’t feel like there’s anything in it for them. The pinnacle of sportsmanship, sure, whatever. The real point is, they didn’t get paid enough.  Nobody gave them one red cent to shut down for two weeks with four years’ notice. Nobody gave them a cut on the ticket prices or the merchandise prices or the overpriced concessions. Nobody let them control anything. The nerve.

So the NHL’s stance really is, if you want professional hockey players in the Olympics, if you want the guys we own in the Olympics, then we need to run the show – and you have to pay us for it. Never mind what the players want. You need to line *our* pockets first.  But we don’t want to come right out and say that because that would just be rude.

Instead, the NHL has a brilliant idea:  resurrect the World Cup. Which would take their players out of the NHL for weeks, would be played on the other side of the world, would be hard on the players, and – and this is the crucial part – would allow the NHL to call the shots and reap the profits.   Sure, nobody around the world really cares about the World Cup and viewership for a tournament like this would be lukewarm at best without an entire Olympic juggernaut behind it. This does not matter. We all know Gary Bettman and his penchant for expanding in to areas that have lukewarm support for hockey but great big deep city pockets to build arenas and pay franchise fees. (See: Phoenix). He’d love to charge obscure European cities obscene fees to host World Cup events that will then be played in the middle of the night watched by nearly nobody.

People watch the Olympics. People take time off work for the Olympics. People have Olympic-watching parties with couches and wings and beer. People talk about the Olympics and tune in to games surreptitiously at work. The Olympics is where people watch sports they only watch every four years – hockey included. Yet another tournament isn’t going to give the NHL more exposure.  As much as Bettman would like it to be, hockey isn’t football.  People love the Olympics. And you can guarantee that even if the next Luongo-Miller grudge match is being played at 4 a.m. EST on a frosty Siberian plain, we’ll be tuning in. Because for any athlete anywhere, the Olympics is the pinnacle. The best. If you win there, you win it all. Why steal that from both the fans and the players, just for the sake of profit?

Seriously, Bettman. Go charge another $3 for a bottled water, if you’re that hard up for cash. Leave the Olympics alone.