Letters to the Editor
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You missed the best niche sport this weekend
The college lacrosse playoffs. All the games have been broadcast on ESPNU. Very good stuff.
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"I wish you'd write about..."
Now that all the fun-to-watch, high-scoring teams have been eliminated from the NBA playoffs, I'm about as likely to watch something as dreadful as a hockey game as I am to watch some slow-paced, crushingly boring basketball game with a final score in the range of 74-67(OT). I'm serious. I'd been watching a lot of the NBA playoffs up 'til the Suns got eliminated, and now I probably won't watch another minute.
So I wish you'd write about tennis now! The French Open's coming! Federer just beat Nadal on clay the other day -- can he win his first French this year?
Yours in nichetude,
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NHL vs Ponies
Man … it's QUIET in here.
TOO quiet.
Where the hell is everybody?
I can't believe there are no comments on this from the Hockey hypsters. NHL … No Hatred Left?
I don't care what the niche numbers say to those running the commercial airwaves, dropping the Sabres/Senators in favor of PRE-RACE pap was moronic. I mean … it's ACTUAL overtime in the NHL playoffs, vs PRE-RACE photo-ops? That's not niche vs niche. That's blown coverage.
The only thing that made it bearable is that I didn't want to see the Sabres lose.
But, I also didn't want to see the tony Pony people.
So … one more lost customer.
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PS: Will anyone really be watching the Spurs/Pistons march to the inexorable finale of the NBA now that the Suns have set?
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NHL heads made it possible
A decade ago hockey was at a crossroads: go for mass marketing or become a niche sport. The mass market wanted less fighting, more scoring, a hockey puck with a blue trail so you could tell where it is, a shorter and more meaningful season and the Stanley Cup final series before the snow melts in Winnipeg. In contrast the hockey connoisseurs enjoy a good fight, dislike the blue trail (they're happy to wait for the red light to tell them when someone scored) and would watch hockey any time any place at nearly any price. Just ask Maple Leafs fans how much they pay to watch their eternally losing team come short in yet another meaningless regular season game.
If the NHL chooses to have an important series in the same day as one of the three main horsing events of the year, and at the same time as Canadians are enjoying their first outdoor holiday of the year, then the NHL has only itself to blame for its niche status.
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So this is what Letters is like on a low page-count day
Can I still loathe Gary Bettman and the NHL brass, while still embracing my nichetude?
I wasn't as irritated with NBC about the switchover as I was with the ones who signed the TV contract. (although having Bob Costas casually leaning on a bench while talking about a 'very special moment/horse/jockey etc.' seemed like salt in the wound)
Bettman talks so much about how the NHL gets better treatment with Versus/NBC than they ever did with ESPN/ABC. I hope for the sake of all things hockey that he sees he may have been mistaken. But I'm not holding my breath.
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I'm Going To Ease Off
On Steve Nash as far as getting a ring goes.
Maybe he can just make it to the finals once before he's through.
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Iverson's Been To The Finals
On a lesser team than most of the teams Nash has played for.
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Vs
My guess is that anyone who really cares about hockey (and I think it is more than a few dozen) already knows where Versus is on their cable system since that is where they have been watching all of the other playoff games. The real bummer was losing the HD when the switch happened because that weird channel that sometimes shows the same programming as Versus in HD was showing golf or an informercial or something.
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Thanks. Really.
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.
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Iverson
Being the Eastern Conference Champion is like kissing your sister, Wesley.
You telling me the Suns couldn't have made it out of the East this year? Please.
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Niche indeed
There is almost nothing more exciting than rooting interest playoff hockey. Overtime rooting interest playoff hockey is a ride worth taking, but exhausting. A goal can come on innocent looking plays, as Alfredsson so aptly showed anyone watching on Versus.
But in a playoff run, a fan has to sit through sixteen wins to get the Stanley Cup, each one more grueling then the last. 16 wins packed into a few months. In a game, there's no moment to reflect. After the game, there's hardly a moment as the next one comes at you fast. It's full on, game on, fast moving, exhilaration. And yes, basketball has essentially the same playoffs, but in hockey you're on the edge of your seat when they drop the puck. In basketball, the edge comes closer to the end.
So even if nobody cares, and no one notices, and they switch from hockey to horse racing, it doesn't matter. I embrace the niche. Plus, I love curling.