This is Part Two of Talking Hoc-key with DJM. Here's Part 1. Below is DJM's response.
Hockey. Allegedly it's a professional sport. No really. They're still playing hockey. For money. And people are expected to pay money to go watch it. I promise, I'm not messing with you.
Does California have a hockey team? I grew up in San Diego, California, back in the heyday of the Los Angeles Kings (one!). I am also familiar with the San Jose Sharks (two!) and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (lame!). I used to root for the Kings, because they had Wayne Gretzky. Gretsky transcended hockey. Rooting for Gretsky was like Remembering the Titans. He was so great he was basically fictional. Add in the purchase of NHL '94 on the Sega Genesis, which should be enough of an explanation in itself, and I was a true hockey fan. For maybe two, three years. I even know about the Kansas City Royals. They play hockey right?
There was one other great thing about being a hockey fan: they let basically everybody into the playoffs. I think my nuclear family was a playoff team in the mid-90s. This was the greatest way ever to get out of doing homework.
"Dave, do your homework."
"But MOM, it's the playoffs!"
"Well, OK, if it's the playoffs."
About three months later when I was still busting out "PLAYOFFS!", like some sort of mini-Mora, she got wise. "How long do the playoffs last?" she finally asked. And I fessed up. "Oh, until, well, just about the middle of next season." That's when I stopped getting to watch hockey playoffs, and had to go do my pre-algebra homework. PLAYOFFS!?
Yeah. Instead of watching Luc Robataille, I was solving for 'x.' Good change.
So why don't I-- why don't most Americans-- enjoy getting their hockey on? Is it due to lack of access? Is it because the majority of people don't have access to ice skates, sticks, and shitty weather? Is it because it was not invented by an American? Is it because it's [gasp] popular in CANADA and we're not going to let those damn socialists tell us what to do?
Well, probably a little bit of all of those. But my parents bought me enough Ninja Turtles action figures and Nerf footballs in my life that if I had been desperate to find a way to ice skate, they probably would've made it happen. Hell, they bought me tap shoes during that period of my life that, uh, we probably shouldn't go into. We do tend to like our sports invented by Americans [see soccer, cricket, rugby, &c. for other examples of spurned non-US approved sports], and we don't particularly care to follow Canada's lead (except in things like prescription drug prices and fighting the Nazis). But I don't think it's any of those things.
I think it's because watching hockey on TV sucks. Worse than sucks. I'd rather watch golf. With a gun pressed to my head, I'd watch hockey instead of the Food Network, but just barely. What makes this even more strange is that the hockey people KNOW their sport is all but unwatchable on TV. Remember the glowing puck experiment from the 90s? Umm, guys, if you have to write a "You Are Here" arrow on the screen for people to understand what the fuck is going on, might you have a problem on your hands?
The sports that I enjoy watching (and that have the ratings numbers, which I'd link to if I weren't lazy) are the sports that are improved by TV access. I know that watching hockey live can be a fun, zesty enterprise. I was nearly thrown out of several NYU hockey games for my increasingly bizarre yet always-annoying jeers ("Hey Rutgers! Our state has greater representation in Congress than yours! Our standardized test scores far exceed yours, as does our hockey prowess!") Those games were fun. But I have no desire to sit upon my fold-out futon to watch a sport wherein I can't even figure out where the puck the fuck is. Wait, switch that. Reverse it.
What do you think? Am I on the right track? Am I begging the question by assuming hockey can't work in America? Do they just need to bring back the glowing puck? Clone Gretzky? Shrink the league down to eight good teams instead of 58 pretty shitty ones? And if people only like sports that are fun to watch on television, as I'm arguing, how in the name of all that is holy is baseball still popular?
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