The Leader

If you have not been watching ESPN SportsCenter lately, you might not know that the 2006 NHL season is underway. That’s okay, you can admit it. After the lockout several years ago, hockey has struggled. Hell, it struggled before the lockout.

If you have not heard of Sidney Crosby by now, you probably have never watched hockey and probably have no intention of starting. Beginning his second year, he is proclaimed by many to be “the next Wayne Gretzky.” He is off to another great start this year for the Pittsburgh Penguins. What makes the NHL great this year is its parity.

The competitiveness of the NHL should bring back more (and possibly attract new) fans, but the schedule conflicts with that of the NBA and NFL. The NHL also struggles because a majority of the best players are not American. Americans certainly like to cheer for their own country’s players. I like watching hockey, but I honestly do not have the time because football and basketball are higher on my list of sports viewing priorities. This is why, like many Americans, I limit my hockey watching time strictly to the playoffs.

For hockey to make a comeback, three things are going to have to happen. Number one: basketball needs to have a down year. Even if this happens, however, most casual fans will turn to college basketball—this is especially the case in Wisconsin because the Badgers have been picked by many experts to win the Big Ten this year.

Number two: scoring will have to go up in the NHL. If more goals are being scored the game will increase in excitement and will draw fans in.

Number three: at the end of the season, it would be a huge plus if there were still a lot of teams in the playoff race—similar to what the MLB has experienced since they adopted the Wild Card. Parity has also worked amazingly well in football, and for hockey to enjoy more success, more teams should be fighting it out with each other when the regular season winds down.

Along with this, the big market teams in Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles will have to be popular. If these things happen, the NHL’s popularity should improve dramatically. However, even if all these things happen in one year, the NHL would still have the foreign player issue. The NHL does have some American stars; however, the foreign born hockey players greatly outnumber them.

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