Fundamentally flawed

Feeling inspired by yesterday's blog posting, I sat down and watched the entire Red Wings/Penguins Game 3 last night. Admittedly it was the first time that I had watched a full hockey game since Game 6 of last year's Stanley Cup in Pittsburgh in which the Wings wrapped up their claim of Lord Stanley's Cup.

I loved it.

Versus does a very nice job with their hockey coverage. I expected to get low-resolution video with cheesy-looking graphics - along the lines of a regional channel, like Fox Sports. But I was pleasantly surprised by a very high-quality broadcast with sharp visuals, nice sound clips and a broadcast team that had some personality. There were several times that I caught myself laughing out loud at some of the snarky comments that the play-by-play guy (whose name I never really caught), which never happens.

The game was a lot of fun, too. Within a few minutes, there was already a barrage of goals. And TV ratings can attest to this: the more offense there is, the better the ratings are. Take football out of the equation, because it is going to get the ratings regardless, and see what you are left with. Basketball gets higher ratings, and the lower-scoring baseball and hockey get lower ratings. If you took a look at the ratings, I think that it would reflect that trend as there wasn't another goal scored until the final ten minutes of the third period, and ratings would start to slowly decline and stay steady from that point in the third on.

For a stretch of years in which defense became the primary focus in the NBA, the Finals ratings suffered, starting in the 2004 Finals in which the Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs. Not until last year when the high-scoring Lakers and the capable Celtics met in the Finals did the ratings improve close to their previous levels.

Now offense has taken center-stage in the NBA Playoffs, and the ratings are at levels that they haven't been at for nearly eight years.

To the NHL's credit, they took measures to increase the speed of the games and the volume of goals scored after the lockout a few seasons ago. Am I suggesting that they make more changes to increase the goals scored and thus the TV ratings? Not at all, I am completely and unequivocally against changing the structure of a game just to increase TV ratings. One round of changes is enough.

But as I watched the game, several things started to dawn on me. I realized why NHL ratings have always been lower than those of the other sports.

First of all, it's a very regional sport. Hockey is very, very big in the North, Northwest and Northeast, but the farther south you go, the less interest there is. That's not the case with the three other big sports. Football is universally loved everywhere, as is baseball, and basketball is becoming more and more universally enjoyed each year. Sure, teams can be added in San Jose and Tampa Bay and Phoenix, but it will take a long time to infuse hockey into areas that typically experience temperatures in the 80's and 90's and rarely experience naturally occurring ice of any sort. People start to wear light jackets and pants in these places at about 70 degrees! Good luck getting those people to go to hockey games.

The other big reason is that the stars aren't always in the game. Out of a possible 60 minutes Sidney Crosby was only in the game for about 22 minutes. Henrik Zetterburg played for 24 minutes. I understand that these are pretty standard amounts of playing time for the top players, but I'm used to LeBron James playing for 45 of 48 minutes. I'm used to Tom Brady being on the field for over half the game as his offense methodically works itself down the field. I'm used to Alex Rodriguez playing defense for half of every inning and going up to bat every 2 or three innings. As shift changes typically occur as the cameras are away from the bench in hockey, its hard for casual fans to tell whether or not the player they're supposed to be watching is even out on the ice. If these are the players that they are supposed to be watching, they want to see a lot of them; they don't want to have to look for them every other minute or two just to lose them again in a few moments.

As much as I want hockey to elevate itself back to the levels of the other three big sports in America, it has several fundamental flaws that it must overcome, somehow. It has gotten off to a good start, but it must continue to build upon the success it has experienced this season.