DREW- A Fundamentally Flawed Analyst
First of all, let me welcome Drew to the blog, it's always beneficial to have varying viewpoints, even those that are contradictory. If for no other reason than they force us to better understand why we believe what we believe and love what we love.
In this case, that would be why do we, the other members of this blog, believe hockey is a great sport, and why do we love it.
You see, agree with Drew or not, he does make some valid points. He has two central tenets here in his inaugural post. The main one is that in hockey there is no single play that can be made that immediately reverse the positions of the winning and losing teams. He runs through a number of permutations to prove his point, and I spent some time considering all the possibilities and I have to concur with him that this is indeed the case in hockey. He is comparing hockey specifically to the three major North American team sports- namely Baseball, Basketball and Football. And truly enough, in each of these sports there are opportunities for a single play to have this outcome... though they are much fewer and farther between than he would have you to believe.
Where I, and I presume most other hockey fans, would disagree is that this difference between the sports represents a flaw of some type, or that it makes it inherently less exciting. He just sort of presumes this part without ever speaking to how or why this one particular difference (among many) represents a flaw.
The game altering single play certainly does provide for one type of excitement that I begrudgingly admit cannot be provided due to the nature of the scoring system in hockey, or any other one point sport. However, hockey- and any other single point sport- as that is the essence of his argument here- provide other types of excitement that you simply cannot get with games based on multiple point values. For instance, when the team you are cheering for goes ahead by a goal, or a point, or a peaknuckle or whatever, with limited time left in the game, you get the excitement of knowing your team has just created a formidable task for their opponents to win the game now. They can't just make one 'hail mary' play and turn the game right around, they must now make a minimum of two back to back plays that result in goals/points, etc. So what you get here is a chance for a mini celebration each time your team goes ahead, because in a sport like this, the likliehood of the team currently ahead in score eventually winning is much higher than it would be for a sport with a multi-layered scoring system. And the payoff on the other side is that a comeback win is that much more exciting. You can't just come back and win on the strength of one inspired play- there needs to be a sustained effort and legitimate momentum shift. So a comeback win is all the sweeter, it's not just a fluke.
Drew, in fairness, gives hockey a bit of nod when it comes to some of the other attributes of the game (speed, etc) then turns what could have been an honorable acknowledgement into a backhanded compliment with the parting 'along with every other damn sport' shot. Really Drew? Speed, you think that's a pretty important dynamic to baseball do you? Perhaps I've not watched as much baseball as you, but last I checked, a fluent pace wasn't exactly paramount to a baseball, or a football team's success. I'm not knocking these other sports, each has it's own particular virtues, and I happen to think that the two biggest virtues to hockey are the speed or pace of the game if you will, and the level of physicality which is not present in any other team sport.
By the bye, if you want to start talking about how a sport is 'fundamentally flawed' because it is a one point game, then you might do better than to utilize the most popular sport on the planet by way of example. Now I'm the first to admit that I'm not really the biggest soccer fan on the planet, and I honestly don't think it ever will catch on in North America the way the three 'major' team sports have. First of all, it's a case of too little, too late. There are major sports that have taken a strangle hold on the North American consciousness already, plus one 'on deck' if you want to count hockey. Soccer is just not going to get a market share here at this point. I'm not going to get into a critique or defence of soccer at this point, since after all, this is a HOCKEY blog, but suffice it to say, if it has enough appeal that it has been the most popular team game on a global scale for the last century, there must be something to it at an elemental level that people like. I'm not saying if 1000 people jump off a bridge that makes it right by any stretch, simply that there must be a compelling reason to motivate them to do so.
All that being said, one of the points that was maybe lost in Drew's post that I agree with is that NHL hockey has consistently shitty ratings, and that it probably never will catch on with the typical American viewer. I just disagree with why that it is the case. It's not an issue of the product's quality, it's an issue of the product's relevance. For the vast majority of North Americans (we're talking Canada and US, not Mexico, though that would just further prove my point), hockey has no relevance, because it's not something that can be accessed on a regular basis, at least not without very specialized access. There are roughly 350 million people between the two countries, of those, about 10% are in Canada, and the remainder in the US. Of the population in the US about 15-20% would reside in what you could refer to as the 'snow belt' where they have a long enough winter season, with sub-freezing temperatures that would be conducive to the natural formation of ice outdoors. Of these areas, the population is heavily weighted towards the north-eastern parts of the country (New York, New England, the other Great Lakes states). So out of the total population we have about 25-30% tops where the general population would have access to playing hockey on even a seasonal basis. In well over 90% of these areas, they would also have access to the other 3 sports on at least a seasonal basis.
And you want to wonder why the other sports would be more popular? It's basic geography and population density my friend. In EVERY part of the world where there is a decent base population, and a climate that includes consecutive months of sub-freezing temperatures on average, hockey is popular. This means Canada obviously, parts of the US north-eastern seabord, most of Northern Europe and Russia. They can play the game in these parts of the world, so they do, and they love it, and they love watching it.
Why on God's green earth would you think that most people in Nashville, Tenessee for example, would have any appreciation for a game they have never been able to play for the most part?
A better question of course would be why the NHL executives would think and allow this. The NHL did just fine plugging along in it's target markets for the first century of it's existence, before it decided against all reason to compete against the three other major American sports in markets it has no business being in. Professional hockey is an exciting, adrenalin inducing game for those who understand it. It is simply not viable as a 30 team league competing for the dollars of people in locales that don't support what basically amounts to a foriegn game. It was a profitable league, and could be again if it finally realized that retraction to it's true demographically realistic markets is the only way for it to operate. It could be a very a succesful 20 team, niche sport. But the NHL wants hockey to be something it is not, a global sport.
Maybe in a world where we all feared Al Gore's counter dimensional doppleganer, and Global Cooling was the impending scourge of the planet, a world where 50% of the poplulation was doomed to live in Canadian winter conditions for 6 months of the year, then hockey could reign supreme as one of the major team sports, attracting the best athletes on the planet. And in this alternate universe, maybe we could have someone like Drew, who could talk about how Basketball could never be a viable competitive game because no one is interested in any kind of game where the outcome of a one hour game is decided in the last 15 seconds more than 90% of the time.....and completely ignore the fact that most of the world can't play the game because they don't have hardwood.
Anyways, I look forward with anticipation to reason #2 regarding overtime. Considering that the entire premise of reason #1 is that a one point sport somehow takes excitement out of the game, it ought to be very intersting to see how something like 'sudden death' overtime, where every single moment might bring complete and total devastation or utter and complete victory to either team, could in actuality be a detriment to the enjoyability of the game.
Welcome to NHL freak, you NHL freak.
Trevor
p.s.- another beaut by the oil tonight, at 10% of the season gone they are firmly entrenched right where they ought to end up....fighting for those last few playoff spots.
In this case, that would be why do we, the other members of this blog, believe hockey is a great sport, and why do we love it.
You see, agree with Drew or not, he does make some valid points. He has two central tenets here in his inaugural post. The main one is that in hockey there is no single play that can be made that immediately reverse the positions of the winning and losing teams. He runs through a number of permutations to prove his point, and I spent some time considering all the possibilities and I have to concur with him that this is indeed the case in hockey. He is comparing hockey specifically to the three major North American team sports- namely Baseball, Basketball and Football. And truly enough, in each of these sports there are opportunities for a single play to have this outcome... though they are much fewer and farther between than he would have you to believe.
Where I, and I presume most other hockey fans, would disagree is that this difference between the sports represents a flaw of some type, or that it makes it inherently less exciting. He just sort of presumes this part without ever speaking to how or why this one particular difference (among many) represents a flaw.
The game altering single play certainly does provide for one type of excitement that I begrudgingly admit cannot be provided due to the nature of the scoring system in hockey, or any other one point sport. However, hockey- and any other single point sport- as that is the essence of his argument here- provide other types of excitement that you simply cannot get with games based on multiple point values. For instance, when the team you are cheering for goes ahead by a goal, or a point, or a peaknuckle or whatever, with limited time left in the game, you get the excitement of knowing your team has just created a formidable task for their opponents to win the game now. They can't just make one 'hail mary' play and turn the game right around, they must now make a minimum of two back to back plays that result in goals/points, etc. So what you get here is a chance for a mini celebration each time your team goes ahead, because in a sport like this, the likliehood of the team currently ahead in score eventually winning is much higher than it would be for a sport with a multi-layered scoring system. And the payoff on the other side is that a comeback win is that much more exciting. You can't just come back and win on the strength of one inspired play- there needs to be a sustained effort and legitimate momentum shift. So a comeback win is all the sweeter, it's not just a fluke.
Drew, in fairness, gives hockey a bit of nod when it comes to some of the other attributes of the game (speed, etc) then turns what could have been an honorable acknowledgement into a backhanded compliment with the parting 'along with every other damn sport' shot. Really Drew? Speed, you think that's a pretty important dynamic to baseball do you? Perhaps I've not watched as much baseball as you, but last I checked, a fluent pace wasn't exactly paramount to a baseball, or a football team's success. I'm not knocking these other sports, each has it's own particular virtues, and I happen to think that the two biggest virtues to hockey are the speed or pace of the game if you will, and the level of physicality which is not present in any other team sport.
By the bye, if you want to start talking about how a sport is 'fundamentally flawed' because it is a one point game, then you might do better than to utilize the most popular sport on the planet by way of example. Now I'm the first to admit that I'm not really the biggest soccer fan on the planet, and I honestly don't think it ever will catch on in North America the way the three 'major' team sports have. First of all, it's a case of too little, too late. There are major sports that have taken a strangle hold on the North American consciousness already, plus one 'on deck' if you want to count hockey. Soccer is just not going to get a market share here at this point. I'm not going to get into a critique or defence of soccer at this point, since after all, this is a HOCKEY blog, but suffice it to say, if it has enough appeal that it has been the most popular team game on a global scale for the last century, there must be something to it at an elemental level that people like. I'm not saying if 1000 people jump off a bridge that makes it right by any stretch, simply that there must be a compelling reason to motivate them to do so.
All that being said, one of the points that was maybe lost in Drew's post that I agree with is that NHL hockey has consistently shitty ratings, and that it probably never will catch on with the typical American viewer. I just disagree with why that it is the case. It's not an issue of the product's quality, it's an issue of the product's relevance. For the vast majority of North Americans (we're talking Canada and US, not Mexico, though that would just further prove my point), hockey has no relevance, because it's not something that can be accessed on a regular basis, at least not without very specialized access. There are roughly 350 million people between the two countries, of those, about 10% are in Canada, and the remainder in the US. Of the population in the US about 15-20% would reside in what you could refer to as the 'snow belt' where they have a long enough winter season, with sub-freezing temperatures that would be conducive to the natural formation of ice outdoors. Of these areas, the population is heavily weighted towards the north-eastern parts of the country (New York, New England, the other Great Lakes states). So out of the total population we have about 25-30% tops where the general population would have access to playing hockey on even a seasonal basis. In well over 90% of these areas, they would also have access to the other 3 sports on at least a seasonal basis.
And you want to wonder why the other sports would be more popular? It's basic geography and population density my friend. In EVERY part of the world where there is a decent base population, and a climate that includes consecutive months of sub-freezing temperatures on average, hockey is popular. This means Canada obviously, parts of the US north-eastern seabord, most of Northern Europe and Russia. They can play the game in these parts of the world, so they do, and they love it, and they love watching it.
Why on God's green earth would you think that most people in Nashville, Tenessee for example, would have any appreciation for a game they have never been able to play for the most part?
A better question of course would be why the NHL executives would think and allow this. The NHL did just fine plugging along in it's target markets for the first century of it's existence, before it decided against all reason to compete against the three other major American sports in markets it has no business being in. Professional hockey is an exciting, adrenalin inducing game for those who understand it. It is simply not viable as a 30 team league competing for the dollars of people in locales that don't support what basically amounts to a foriegn game. It was a profitable league, and could be again if it finally realized that retraction to it's true demographically realistic markets is the only way for it to operate. It could be a very a succesful 20 team, niche sport. But the NHL wants hockey to be something it is not, a global sport.
Maybe in a world where we all feared Al Gore's counter dimensional doppleganer, and Global Cooling was the impending scourge of the planet, a world where 50% of the poplulation was doomed to live in Canadian winter conditions for 6 months of the year, then hockey could reign supreme as one of the major team sports, attracting the best athletes on the planet. And in this alternate universe, maybe we could have someone like Drew, who could talk about how Basketball could never be a viable competitive game because no one is interested in any kind of game where the outcome of a one hour game is decided in the last 15 seconds more than 90% of the time.....and completely ignore the fact that most of the world can't play the game because they don't have hardwood.
Anyways, I look forward with anticipation to reason #2 regarding overtime. Considering that the entire premise of reason #1 is that a one point sport somehow takes excitement out of the game, it ought to be very intersting to see how something like 'sudden death' overtime, where every single moment might bring complete and total devastation or utter and complete victory to either team, could in actuality be a detriment to the enjoyability of the game.
Welcome to NHL freak, you NHL freak.
Trevor
p.s.- another beaut by the oil tonight, at 10% of the season gone they are firmly entrenched right where they ought to end up....fighting for those last few playoff spots.
posted by Trevor at
4:19 PM
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