Wednesday, July 25, 2007
NHL Must Capitalize on Other Sports' Woes
NBA match fixing.
Another criminal in the NFL.
Interminable problems with steroids in baseball.
Heck, even cycling can't avoid these controversies. And so, our good clean Canadian boys, who aren't much for steroids and dog fighting, have kept our sport clean. So, what does the NHL do? Not much.
We should be hearing how the NHL doesn't have these problems because of how wonderful the players are and see those ads showing how menschy they are, like the Shanahan/Fedorov ad. A full page ad in the New York Times is news in itself. Let's get one with the Stanley Cup, Scott Niedermayer and some of the recent hall of fame inductees. "All Natural," the caption could read.
People are becoming disillusioned with these other sports. Baseball is trying very hard to get people interested in following Barry Bonds's mission to stop Hank Aaron, but no one outside of the SOMA area in San Francisco cares, because we all know he cheated. We know Sosa and McGuire cheated too. We know Aaron and Maris are still the real record holders.
And the NFL is filling up with too many people trying hard to live up to white America's negative black stereotypes. Some of those types (do we want them? dunno) must surely find some appeal in the lily white affect of the NHL.
And then there's the NBA. I think the ref cheating is just a straw that broke the camel's back kind of thing. Their move to cable has been as bad for them as the NHL's move to small time cable. There have been plenty of scandals there, too. Plus, is anything worse than watching a whole basketball game only to endure fifty time outs in the last minute?
MLS is capitalizing on this. They have instituted a new version of the North American club championship, called the SuperLiga. They have David Beckham. They are all over the big demographic changes occurring in this country. Scott Gomez doesn't make up for that.
We talk a lot about problems in hockey. Those problems have to do with the technical rules of the game, the number of supportable franchises, and so on. None of them have to do with cheating, or striking at the heart of sporting. Remember that next time you go on a tirade about fighting and violence. It may be wrong, but it's not cheating.
Another criminal in the NFL.
Interminable problems with steroids in baseball.
Heck, even cycling can't avoid these controversies. And so, our good clean Canadian boys, who aren't much for steroids and dog fighting, have kept our sport clean. So, what does the NHL do? Not much.
We should be hearing how the NHL doesn't have these problems because of how wonderful the players are and see those ads showing how menschy they are, like the Shanahan/Fedorov ad. A full page ad in the New York Times is news in itself. Let's get one with the Stanley Cup, Scott Niedermayer and some of the recent hall of fame inductees. "All Natural," the caption could read.
People are becoming disillusioned with these other sports. Baseball is trying very hard to get people interested in following Barry Bonds's mission to stop Hank Aaron, but no one outside of the SOMA area in San Francisco cares, because we all know he cheated. We know Sosa and McGuire cheated too. We know Aaron and Maris are still the real record holders.
And the NFL is filling up with too many people trying hard to live up to white America's negative black stereotypes. Some of those types (do we want them? dunno) must surely find some appeal in the lily white affect of the NHL.
And then there's the NBA. I think the ref cheating is just a straw that broke the camel's back kind of thing. Their move to cable has been as bad for them as the NHL's move to small time cable. There have been plenty of scandals there, too. Plus, is anything worse than watching a whole basketball game only to endure fifty time outs in the last minute?
MLS is capitalizing on this. They have instituted a new version of the North American club championship, called the SuperLiga. They have David Beckham. They are all over the big demographic changes occurring in this country. Scott Gomez doesn't make up for that.
We talk a lot about problems in hockey. Those problems have to do with the technical rules of the game, the number of supportable franchises, and so on. None of them have to do with cheating, or striking at the heart of sporting. Remember that next time you go on a tirade about fighting and violence. It may be wrong, but it's not cheating.
// posted by Rick @ 7:49 AM 
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