Friday, January 11, 2008
Butts in seats versus Cups in Trophy Case
The entire driving force in the Bettman era has been to make a spectacle of hockey. The NHL front office is run by the same kind of people who run the Democratic party: piss on your base, and gun for the fickle "low information" voter, because that makes the sports pundits--the Jim Romes, et al., say good things about the sport.
Meanwhile, the fans that know how to enjoy a 1-0 game, who remember what a two-line pass was, and take delight in a brilliant save, a pounding hip check, as much as a soft goal, well, we're taken for granted.
But those itinerant fans aren't sticking. The lockout, maybe. Maybe they didn't like 40 minutes of special teams any more than they liked to so-called "dead puck" era. Maybe you just only get the 1985 Oilers once in a lifetime.
Instead of lionizing the teams that adapted to the new era, and watering its base, the NHL has simply become a showcase for goal scoring, nothing more. Restrictions are placed on goalies in ways that no other players have to deal with. And the players who can score in the "dead puck" era wreaked havoc on the Canadian teams and the top US market teams in favor of provincial markets like Detroit, Dallas, Colorado, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Saint Louis.
But those teams dominated the sport for 15 years, and yet that era is looked at as a garbage era.
Nothing symbolizes this incorrect strategy more than today's Ovechkin contract. They are paying this kid more money than the team is worth, over a dog's age, because he can do one thing: score goals. He hasn't made the team better, or attracted top talent to it like Sidney Crosby (who took less money to insure a competitive team), he just scores goals and makes people go "yay."
But the Capitals are 10+ years away from their last appearance in the finals, and have barely been in the playoffs since. And this commitment to Ovechkin--instead of a top flight goalie or defenceman-- (you know, the players that actually help you win Cups) shows that the team doesn't give a shit about Cups in case--it cares only about butts in seats.
Meanwhile, the fans that know how to enjoy a 1-0 game, who remember what a two-line pass was, and take delight in a brilliant save, a pounding hip check, as much as a soft goal, well, we're taken for granted.
But those itinerant fans aren't sticking. The lockout, maybe. Maybe they didn't like 40 minutes of special teams any more than they liked to so-called "dead puck" era. Maybe you just only get the 1985 Oilers once in a lifetime.
Instead of lionizing the teams that adapted to the new era, and watering its base, the NHL has simply become a showcase for goal scoring, nothing more. Restrictions are placed on goalies in ways that no other players have to deal with. And the players who can score in the "dead puck" era wreaked havoc on the Canadian teams and the top US market teams in favor of provincial markets like Detroit, Dallas, Colorado, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Saint Louis.
But those teams dominated the sport for 15 years, and yet that era is looked at as a garbage era.
Nothing symbolizes this incorrect strategy more than today's Ovechkin contract. They are paying this kid more money than the team is worth, over a dog's age, because he can do one thing: score goals. He hasn't made the team better, or attracted top talent to it like Sidney Crosby (who took less money to insure a competitive team), he just scores goals and makes people go "yay."
But the Capitals are 10+ years away from their last appearance in the finals, and have barely been in the playoffs since. And this commitment to Ovechkin--instead of a top flight goalie or defenceman-- (you know, the players that actually help you win Cups) shows that the team doesn't give a shit about Cups in case--it cares only about butts in seats.
// posted by Rick @ 11:40 AM 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]