Of the "Big Four" sports in the USA - baseball, football, basketball, and hockey - hockey has always been the "little brother."
It doesn't command the ratings or the monumental TV contracts that football, basketball, or baseball get, nor does it produce as many marquee stars; while just about any American, no matter how casual a fan, could probably name 5 players, if not more, who are currently playing in the NBA, NFL, or MLB, I'd be willing to bet that most couldn't name five current NHL players.
"Uhhh... Wayne Gretzky, is he still playing?"
"Nope."
"Um... there was that Mario guy... Mario Lemieux, yeah. Him?"
"Nope."
"Shit. What about that goalie who was really awesome in the Olympics? God, why can't I remember his name?"
"Ryan Miller."
"Yeah, him. Is he still playing?"
"Hey, you just named one. Four to go."
"Ummmmmmmmm... you sure Gretzky isn't still playing?"
So, with that in mind, I am going to give you, the Casual Progressive Sports Fan (or Non-Fan), ten reasons why you should like hockey.
1. Canadians and other socialists. You want to talk about a league that's full of socialists, look no further than the NHL. Russians.* Swedes. Finns. Germans. Czechs. And more Canadians than you can shake a hockey stick at. (And it's a good thing too, because most of them would break your face if you did... see items #5 and #6.) Athletes from countries where a strong social safety net, single-payer health care (and that's a good thing, see #5), a state-run pension system, and national ownership of resources are considered the basic necessities for democracy. They're probably just as flabbergasted as we are at the idea that the American people might go along with more draconian cuts to social services while the rich just keep getting richer.
2. Canadians. I know they're listed in Item #1, but I wanted to break this out; unlike football (which has zero non-USA teams) and basketball and baseball, which each have 1-2 non-USA teams (MLB and NBA in Toronto, NBA in Vancouver), hockey has six - count 'em, six - franchises in the Great White North (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal), and may get a seventh this year if the Phoenix Coyotes move back to Winnipeg. That's an international game, folks. Plus, when you're playing a Canadian team, you get to sing "O Canada" at the beginning of the game... and that's a pretty rad national anthem, particularly when you're singing it in English next to someone from Montreal who sings the anthem in French immediately before falling down and faking an injury in hopes of drawing a penalty.
3. More socialism. The NHL, like the NFL, has a pretty stringent salary cap and revenue sharing program, meaning that even if you come from a small-market town, your team will have a pretty good chance at contending every few years if it's being managed properly. It wasn't always this way; one of the reasons there are so few Canadian franchises in the NHL is because back in the '90s, before the current revenue-sharing system and when the Canadian dollar (pronounced "doe-lar") was running about $.70 American, the Canadian teams were being priced out of the market. So they moved to places like Colorado or Phoenix. But this year's playoffs feature teams from small hockey markets like Nashville, Tampa Bay, and Phoenix (a hockey market so small they might end up moving back to Winnipeg).
4. Actual, honest-to-God action. The average NFL game - which lasts 2-3 hours from start to end - has only about 12 minutes of action, by which I mean that in almost three hours, you only get to see the players actually playing the game they're paid to play for one-fifth of an hour. Compare that to a hockey game, which has 60 minutes of full-speed hockey... and unlike soccer, I've never seen a boring hockey game. Even a low-scoring hockey game will feature a lot of hard hitting (#5), maybe a fight (#6) and some excellent goaltending and defense - and in the NHL, goaltending and defense aren't boring things. They go so fast that most of the time you're left thinking "holy shit, how did he just do that?"
5. These guys are badass. Seriously. Badass. Johan Franzen, who took a brutal hit in the first period of April 15's playoff game, went back to the locker room to get 20+ stitches in his face, and then came out in the secondto play the rest of the game looking like this. Martin St. Louis took a hit that fractured two of his teeth and required a double root canal, and played the next night. Last year, Eric Belanger took a hit, went to the bench, removed a tooth, and was out for the next faceoff. Seriously, badass. Like Mike Green, who after missing half the season with a concussion came back for the playoffs and took a screaming 100-mph slapshot to the head - knocking two screws out of his helmet - only to be ready to play again in the third period (though Bruce didn't need him). Oh, and even the punishments these guys deal to each other that are permitted by the rules would make any NFL player blushâbeing slammed into the boards by a 250-pound guy with a stick coming at you at 15mph, the hipcheck that upends you onto the unforgiving ice. No wonder the Habs dive like Italians in the World Cup.
6. Fighting is part of the game. Speaking of things permitted by the rules, there's fighting. Technically it's not permitted by the rules per se, but it's one of those things that has its own unwritten code - a code that even the referees won't interfere with. The five-minute major can be oh-so-worth it - to get the crowd into the game, to get your team fired up, to enforce against dirty play from the other team, or just to send a "don't f*** with us" lesson. Hell, even goalies will skate out to fight when the situation calls for it.
7. Playoffs? Playoffs? In terms of intensity, longevity, and pure excitement, I'd take the NHL playoffs over any other tournament in professional sport. It isn't much of an exaggeration to say that the game completely changes when the 82-game regular season ends and the playoffs begin. The hits are harder. The shots are faster. The goalies feel more pressure. The scrums in front of the goal are scrummier. And the facial hair is scragglier. If you watch nothing else of the NHL this year, start watching right now and watch through the end of the Stanley Cup Finals. You'll be hooked.
8. Coolest trophy in sports. Speaking of the Stanley Cup Finals, please tell me what professional sport has a trophy cooler, more recognizable, more iconic than Lord Stanley's goblet? What professional sport has a trophy more functional than the Cup, which has provided lifetime-enduring memories from breakfast, doggie mealtime, champagne toasts, and, of course, a nice cool beer? I doubt any of the guys playing in the NBA playoffs right now have carried a dreamy mental picture of themselves hoisting this thing over their heads as motivation since they were old enough to walk. And this? I'd be afraid to touch it lest it break.
9. It looks better in HD. In the halcyon days of the 1990s - oh, how fondly we remember them - FOX bet big on hockey, thinking it was going to be the next big thing. The big complaint back then was that on the televisions of the time, the puck - a little three-inch round piece of rubber - was hard to see for the viewers at home. So they tried the infamous glowing puck experiment using the latest in Pentium computer technology... and of course it just looked ridiculous. Fortunately, we all have HDTVs now - and if you haven't watched hockey since the '90s, let me tell you, it's a totally different experience. I'm convinced that if HDTV had been around in the '90s, hockey would be a lot more popular than it is now.
10. Don Effing Cherry. Please tell me, what other sport has as one of its most beloved (or behated) commentators a kinda-racist right-wing curmudgeon who dispenses sound hockey advice to "da kids out dere" and wears outfits like these?
(Thanks to Don We Now Our Gay Apparel for these...)
There you have it: 10 reasons you, the Casual Kossack Sports Fan, should love hockey. If I've convinced you - and how could I not have convinced you? - you can watch hockey this very night!
At 7pm EDT - which means I actually have to get going, because I've got a ticket to the game - you can watch my very own Washington Capitals play the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first game of their playoff series. It'll be on Versus or TSN (if you're in Canada, as if any Canadian would need to be convinced to watch hockey). And at 10pm EDT, you can watch the Detroit Red Wings (ask them about the octopus) play the San Jose Sharks (ask them about all the times they've choked in the playoffs) on the very same channels.
My advice: Run, don't walk, to your nearest sports bar and watch the game surrounded by fans. It'll make the experience better.
And until next time, keep your head up and keep your stick on the ice.
* Okay, maybe they abandoned Communism, but to Real Amurrcans the Russkies are still all Commies, right?