BUT AMERICANS USUALLY LOVE BLOODBATHS!

By: B

One hundred MPH slapshots, changing lines on the fly, blazing speed, bloody noses and black eyes; on paper, the NHL has it all. So why is no one watching?

Growing up in Minnesota provides a force-fed knowledge of hockey. Like it or not, hockey is everywhere in Minnesota. Everyone has had a chance to learn and play the sport that serves as our state pastime. Along with calling casserole “hotdish” and judging distance by minutes instead of miles, hockey knowledge is inbred with us as Minnesotans.

The Minnesota state hockey championships are as exciting as March Madness. For a few days each year, high school hockey is the talk of the state. The state tournament dominates our newspapers and radio talk shows. Every office has a pool, fans line up in hopes of getting tickets. There are honestly thousands of people who point to this tournament as their favorite sporting event of the year. Grown men take off work and show up in droves to watch two teams with which they have no personal affiliation. The ones who don’t (i.e. B) are jealous of those men, because high school hockey really is exciting.

Entire towns show up to support their team. Most Minnesota fans can name their favorite player or moment (mine being a four-overtime game against Apple Valley and Duluth East). Even the section tournaments draw thousands of people. I played baseball; the only people at our section tournaments were our parents, and a few students waiting for the late bus.

College hockey is even more popular, and the season lasts longer. The Western College Hockey Association (WCHA), the elite conference in Division I hockey, hosts four teams from Minnesota. These in-state rivalries are notoriously rowdy and exciting. There are riots and there are fistfights; these (drunken) fans absolutely hate each other. I honestly saw a mascot get blindsided and pummeled by fans from the opposing school in the middle of the game. The players can be unbelievably arrogant, but when you’re young and you have strangers following you around and hanging on your every word, every day of the year, you might be too. What else can you expect by treating kids in their early 20s like royalty?

The next step up is the Minnesota Wild, our NHL hockey team. This team, like any NHL team, is composed of some of the best athletes in the world, and they play in what may be the elite arena in the country. However, attending a Wild game has a different, more detached feel to it. Minnesotans supported the hell out of the Wild as they were in the playoffs, but cheering for the Wild just isn’t the same as cheering for our hometown teams. While the game is faster, the excitement and tension rarely shines through. The state-of-the-art arena is impersonal and corporate; hockey is becoming known as a blue-collar sport with a white-collar price tag. Sure, the Wild haven’t been around very long, and they may even someday be the most popular hockey game in town.

I, however, feel that no matter how good the Wild are, no matter how long they’ve been around or how likeable their players are, NHL hockey can’t compete with the overall excitement of high school and college. The problem lies within the game itself, and the factors that elicit enjoyment and fan support.

Obviously, skill is the most important aspect of hockey, and all sports. Sports like lacrosse and tennis are certainly exciting, but extreme athletic talent isn’t as evident as the four major sports. All the great athletes are likely playing other, more glamorous sports. Hockey does not have this problem. It is such a specialized game, involving an intense combination of speed and strength. The players are unbelievably strong and agile, making some of the more remarkable plays in all sports. It’s the fastest of the four majors, and also the most physical. Fans love both these attributes. Even with this advantage hockey lags behind the rest of the majors. In fact, it earns even less television ratings than bowling and poker. Why?

There is an easy explanation, one that justifies why high school and college hockey are as entertaining as the pros. The key to an exciting hockey game? Mistakes. This may sound awfully dense, but consider a few points.

What are traditionally the most thrilling moments in a hockey game? Power plays, odd man rushes and breakaways first come to mind, and rightly so. What is the cause to these plays? Mistakes. Missed passes, failure to pick up your man or back-check, faulty positioning, penalties; all of these lead to excitement. An error-free hockey is as exciting as your standard soccer match, meaning the only people receiving enjoyment are the diehards. Nearly every SportsCenter highlight is the result of an error of some kind.

Great hockey is evidenced by superior athletes exploiting even the tiniest of their opponents’ errors or miscalculations. Forget to pick up your man in the slot for even a half-second? In high school and college hockey, this usually results in a scoring chance. In the NHL, it often just causes a cheap shot with no following consequence.

Everyone agrees the officiating in hockey is terrible. In baseball, when a pitcher makes a mistake and leaves a ball up, there is nothing he can do about it. In hockey? Clutching sticks in front of the net, cheap shots in the corner, flying elbows; making a mistake doesn’t necessarily result in an advantage for the other team. Imagine a catcher grabbing the hitter’s bat as he’s trying to swing. Is there a difference here? Decide for yourself.

I understand that hockey thrives on the one-on-one battles, both in front of the net and in the corners, but the current style is becoming unruly and deplorable. No one knows yet when the NHL is going to return from the current lockout, but solving the financial struggles is only half the battle. Without enforcing clean behavior we lose out on the best part of hockey: superb athletes taking advantage of miniscule mistakes. The game of hockey deserves better.

Hockey is such a great sport. I want to see power plays and breakaways, one-timers and clean hip checks. Living in Minnesota, I can at least get my hockey fix in other ways. For any fan of hockey, look to the high school and college levels to show the true representation of this fading pastime.

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