Letters to the Editor

• Thanks. Really.

  [Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  A lot of hockey fans have been saying this for years; and this is a significant element of the hating-Bettman subtext and the decrying of expansion into Southern markets. Yeah, there is some Northern snobbery inherent, but most of that [and I don't want to cast every Canadian in this light] comes from North of the border. It's nice to be a niche. I have friends I've made simply because they saw me wearing an Islanders hat — there's an understanding, especially for Americans who watch hockey. It reminds me of one of your old columns about Clemens reaching some plateau, and critics saying it wouldn't be appopriate if he reached it in Pittsburgh in September because it wasn't the right baseball environment for appreciation. Your point, if I remember correctly, was that a Pirates game in September was, actually, likely to only be attended by the most appreciate and die-hard baseball fans.

  It works that way with hockey, especially in the U.S., which is a point lost on a lot of the Canadian media [and a cousin of my step-mother-in-law's who, if I heard correctly, had a hand in inventing the game] ... if you put up with the shit the typical U.S. fan goes through, and you still love the game, you're a dedicated fan of a niche sport. It's alright.

  Permalink Monday, May 21, 2007 09:49 AM