As a sports writer AND hockey fan, this deeply troubles me

I’ll admit that I still haven’t gotten over my beloved Buffalo Sabres being knocked out of the NHL playoffs about two weeks ago. I hate the Ottawa Senators. In fact, I don’t know if there’s a professional sports team that I dislike more, except maybe the Pittsburgh Steelers. But I digress.

I came across an article on ESPN.com that detailed the overt lack of newspaper coverage of this year’s Stanley Cup Finals by large U.S. markets. All rivalries aside, I loyally follow the Stanley Cup Playoffs each and every year, and I stand by my assessment that it is indeed the greatest tournament in all of sports.

However, I’m not stupid, nor am I out of touch with the interests of the American sports population. Professional hockey just doesn’t have a huge following in America. And having a small-market American team (Anaheim) face off against a Canadien team (Ottawa) isn’t exactly a dream matchup for the NHL in terms of marketing and television rating. You can bet that Commissioner Gary Bettman and the rest of the high-ranking executives wanted a Buffalo-Detroit final. Sorry fellas, no dice.

But really, it’s amazing to me that this series is getting so little attention. The sports sections of newspaper, especially in large sports markets, have always traditionally covered any and all professional sports events. This would obviously include the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB and NASCAR, among golf, tennis and other professional sporting events. But we have now reached a time where that just isn’t the case.

The NHL has done all it can to repair its damaged image from the 2004-05 lockout, and has created a much more entertaining brand of hockey. It’s just depressing that no one can read about it, and even more depressing that no one seems to care that it’s being ignored in the first place.

Posted June 4, 2007 at 6:20 pm by Andrew | Share on Facebook
Categories: ice hockey

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