NHL back?

Post Reply New Topic

It looks like the NHL is back. Even though I complain and rag about pro sports players geting so much money, I've always grown up watching the NHL. My Edmonton Oilers banners still hang from my bedroom ceiling. I guess I am quite upset about people wanting so much money for playing games but at the same time, it's a capitalistic society here. My plans for renting out apartment buildings, houses and upgrading/selling properties is viewed by alot of people as capitalistic evil as well. So I guess we are all evil...I am kind of eager to see the hockey again!!

Hahahahaha....

Looks likes there's high interest here. My friends at home don't care much either. I didn't enjoy seing Jeremy Roenick, a player, on the 6 o-clock news whining about settling for 5.7 mill down from 7 mill. If I see too much more of that BS, i'm going to drop the whole pro sports thing. Pro sports CAN work but the greed and cockyness is getting out of hand.

I don't watch hockey, or any other team sport, so I didn't miss it this year. You must admit, if you had a seven million dollar contract you'd be disappointed when it got cut back by a couple million. Many of you will say, oh but five million dollars is more than enough to live on, but I'm sure most of you would continue to live resonably well with a ten percent pay cut, yet I'm sure none of you want a pay cut.

How many people out there actually work for a living and get dogsh!t to live on for money? When I think of that, it makes me think that I should just give up watching pro sports at all.

Funny thing is if they had smartened up last year they would have had a higher salary cap than they will going back this season. Oh well. Dylan and I will be happy to have Montreal Canadians back... Dylan at least for the logos. Myself for well being in a Montreal Canadians fan family for generations.

It's like a trade off. I want to see it again but I don't like the way pro sports style greed is infecting people. It boils down to the children too. Alot of kids are so pushed by their parents to be future stars that they don't get the chance to have simple fun. This winter I saw more kids on ponds than I had seen in my whole life.

I highly doubt Dylan would want to play sports, I used to like soccer and hockey as a kid but that was me, I wasn't that great coordinated but I could play goalie/keeper. Brendon though I could see playing hockey... he has a competitive, aggressive personality already.

I remember when I first saw a hockey game on TV, I thought it looked interesting until I found out I had to skate, which I didn't like.

I saw my first interest in the NHL when I was about 9. There wasn't any channels in my home that showed hockey games except that ESPN showed a few post-season games but that was just before I started picking it up, then the network stopped televising games. The only way I was able to see games was by watching highlights on SportsCenter, when it really was a news program. The newspapers only showed summaries and standing in the back of the sports section with the Other Sports, I never read them because I didn't really get into the detail of it and it was just too small to read.

By 1990 we received SportsChannel for the first time but it was a pay network at that time which only lasted through the evening. We never payed for it since there was no reason to pay for A's and Giants' baseball games. At least later on the network only scrambled the pro games and left the other programs on. There they showed other NHL games on SportsChannel America and featured the Stanley Cup Championship, which was won by the Pittsburgh Penguins that first year the Sharks played. The game seemed a little to confusing for me and I had a little impatience in waiting for a goal to be scored, that would change later in life. That, and I also didn't pay attention to other games anyways.

I didn't know the rules of the game and the consequences of hockey fights, but I had some open interest in the game and just seeing the players do their thing was all I needed to know. I never picked up a stick nor touched a puck but it was some sport too keep an eye on.

By this time the rink and boards started showing ads, and the bench-emptying donnybrook shenanigans were about to be completely eradicated - not counting the buzzer gatherings. So I never got to see a live game with an old-fashioned clearer. There were still plenty of line brawls though.

At this time, I heard that the Minnesota North Stars wanted to come down to San Jose, but the league said no. But the owner sold the Stars and established the Sharks anyways. The Sharks had to play their standard sub-par expansion year and even worse second year at the Cow Palace, which is right near San Francisco and not a place for hockey. I don't think many people from that part of the Bay care for the Sharks like the South Bay. I always enjoyed watching the shark tank be built and gaining it's progress until it finally opened in 1993.

I started to get into the game when the Sharks first went to the playoffs but then the team started to fall apart then rebuild and crumble again. I started losing interest in the game until the Sharks started to become a prescence in the league and even reched the West Finals in 2004.

Today I am not that interested in hockey, I think it has changed to much and new rules tend to make the game more of a goal lackluster thanks to too many penalties being called and the "trap". Even the fighting has dropped a lot as more talent over fists are in the league along with players not being able to police themselves since the rule changes related to fighting allow for more stickwork by goonish players.

In terms of marketing, those outside the US hockey belt aren't really into the game as they think. Yeah, Tampa won the Stanley Cup but really, do Floridians have enough of an interested in the frozen game of the Great White North, when their teams aren't fairing too well? The league can market like crazy but Westerners, Texans, and Southerners do not have the same interest levels of hockey as those in Minnesota, the Great Lakes and Northeast.

Low ratings show hockey's decline in the States, why can't the league see that there is a problem.

I know many Canadians don't like how the league is being ruined in order to appeal to the disinterested American. It's a mess and it needs to be fixed. The lockout has in all put a huge scar in the business and I don't know when it will be healed.

Someday I may gain some interest in the game, but as time moves on, it will only tell.