No longer a big deal, hockey’s non-descript opening day shows how far it’s fallen in the public conscience, and how much work it has to do to get back up

SCOTT JACOBS

The NHL season began today.  Did you know that?

I practically forgot.

The NFL’s opening game each year is a national event, a shrine to the previous season’s Super Bowl winner.  MLB’s first game usually takes place on a Sunday Night on national TV, usually between two primetime teams.  The NBA has recently been opening it’s season on a Wednesday night on TNT with a doubleheader, always featuring the defending champion and their ring ceremony. And the NHL opens in a foreign country so out of touch from the sports fans psyche that the game is practically forgotten.

Tucked in between a trifecta of MLB Division round games, the NBA’s exhibition season, and a month and a half into the NFL and college football seasons, the NHL opened it’s 2010 season today.  In Helsinki.  Where’s that?

Answer: Finland.

And o by the way, if you’re curious, it’s the Hurricanes taking on the Wild.

As I write this article they play on.  For those of you keeping score at home it’s 2 Eastern time in the U.S.  Most people are at work.  Most kids are at school, and the MLB Playoffs resume later today.

The NHL is already behind the eight ball.  ESPN Magazine’s Preview for the sport was shameful.  I get that ESPN doesn’t care about hockey.  They helped kill it’s vitality in the states.  Versus is still relatively obscure to most people, even in spite of their great college football games that they’ve had.

For years the start of hockey season was a big deal for me.  I circled it on my calendar eagerly anticipating it’s arrival.  But now the NHL is such an afterthought that it’s feasible a week could go by without some casual sports fans even realizing they dropped the puck.

The NHL needs a big stage to open it’s season, not a location that I need a globe to find.

They need to make it known that their opening game is important, that you should watch because of this, this, and this.

The NHL which was once one of the Big 4 sports in North America is now a forgotten entity, revisited in mid spring when they start the playoffs.  In any other sport, the defending champions slicing and dicing their roster (like the Blackhawks did) would be one of the summer’s biggest stories.  In any other sport, a team that made the playoffs despite being bankrupt and owned by the sport, would be at the forefront of our sports news.  In any other sport, stars defecting to Europe would be a big deal.

But this is the NHL we’re talking about.  And if you can name the two teams to which I was referring you’re ahead of most casual fans.

The NHL has a niche following, and many people feel it’s experimentation with the Sun Belt has failed.  But hockey’s ability to promote itself and get it out on the forefront has also failed.  Yes, they’re still coming in drives to the arenas, but hockey’s water cooler appeal has flat out melted in the last 5-7 years.

And living in the Southeast like I do, well forget it.  You’re practically a minority if you can put together a cohesive hockey conversation.

But I find it hard to believe that a league that’s been around since 1917 can be such a blip on our sports radar. Maybe they expanded too fast, maybe they made some bad decisions, but to have been around for almost a 100 years and have the most well known trophy in sports, it seems inexcusable to open a season this quietly.

Some say the NHL doesn’t mind being a niche sport.  I don’t think that’s the case.  I just think that the NHL has fallen off the map so much, that they don’t even have any idea where to begin to start climbing back up.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: we tend to think these mega sports leagues like the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL are infallible, but with the path the NHL is going towards, it’s on the verge of becoming invisible.  Which for the sake of their league, isn’t a whole lot better.

Photo: AP

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