‘Canes Winning – But Who’s Watching?
CAROLINA WINS 18TH GAME BEHIND CAM WARD’S SOLID GOALTENDING … BUT ARE SOUTHERNERS PAYING ANY ATTENTION TO ICE HOCKEY?
FITSNews – December 23, 2006 - It always gives us great pleasure at FITS to remind our Yankee friends that the Stanley Cup – hockey’s ultimate prize and the most difficult championship in all of professional sports to capture – currently resides below the Mason-Dixon line.
Of course, it always gives our Yankee friends great pleasure to remind us that there are probably only five people south of the Mason-Dixon line who actually care.
And that’s too bad.
Hockey is an amazing sport – combining the speed of NASCAR, the skill of golf and the toughness and brute strength of SEC Football. Of course getting people to watch hockey in the South (despite the fact that the World Champion Carolina Hurricanes call Tobacco Road their home) is a lot like getting toddlers to watch Law and Order instead of Baby Einstein.
Don’t believe us? Try turning that show off the next time you’re relaxing in front of the tube with somebody under the age of three. Baby Einstein is toddler crack, people.
Anway, here’s the extent of what most Southerners know about hockey: We beat the Russians once in the Olympics and it was kind of a big deal – even here in God’s Country. Everybody was chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A” and the announcer was screaming something about miracles. After that, it gets hazy.
Ironically, today it seems just about every player in the NHL is Russian, which makes it a tough sell in the land of Dale Junior and Tommy Bowden. It’s hard to get people here excited about a play-by-play that sounds more like the book-on-tape version of Anna Karenina.
“Demetrikov to Yushkevilov to Romoninov … now back to Yushkevilov … over to Kroninov … now back to Yushkevilov … Demetrikov … Yushkevilov …”
Not exactly Montana to Rice or Manning to Harrison.
In addition to a glaring paucity of players named Earl (or DeShaun or Carlos, for that matter), hockey also features a much more complicated set of rules than those governing other mainstream sports, if we can honestly still call hockey “mainstream” given its abysmal post-lockout TV ratings.
(Most Southerners probably missed this, but the NHL actually didn’t play hockey at all two years ago because of a lockout, the only time in history that a major league professional sport lost an entire season due to a labor dispute).
Adding to its PR misery, hockey is one of the few professional sports that looks worse, not better, on TV. The camera angles just don’t do it justice and the action is often extremely difficult to follow because it’s focused on a tiny black dot that’s frequently quite camera-shy.
But hockey’s biggest hurdle in courting Southern audiences is probably best described using a political analogy – it has limited “grassroots” support.
Let’s face it, hockey isn’t a sport that some kid living in Eutawville can just pick up on a whim. First of all it requires ice, which unlike grass isn’t the easiest thing in the world to come by in the South – at least as far as playing surfaces go. On top of that, unlike soccer, basketball and baseball, it requires an SUV full of equipment (two SUVs if your kid wants to play goalie). That’s a lot to ask of parents who are used to budgeting for a pair of shoes, some shin pads and a twelve-pack of Capri Suns as the annual investment in their kid’s athletic career.
So with no local heroes, no local presence, tricky rules and paltry TV ratings, it’s really not all that surprising that no Southerner living outside Raleigh-Durham can tell you that the ‘Canes are currently in second place in the NHL’s Southeast Division following a 5-1 win over the New York Islanders last night.
So the question is – what, if anything, can the NHL do to gain new converts in the Land of Ricky Bobby?
First, as part of a broader Southern outreach effort, the NHL needs to find some TV announcers who don’t sound like Frances McDermott in Fargo every time they open their mouths.
Second, its European stars need to ditch their impossible to pronounce Slavic surnames in favor of catchy, two-letter nicknames like MJ or LT. A couple high-profile, on-again, off-again relationships with A-list Hollywood actresses wouldn’t hurt, either.
Third, the NHL needs to triple whatever it’s currently spending on youth roller hockey leagues in warmer climates. Like Whitney said, the children are your future.
Fourth, the league should keep experimenting with ways to make the puck more visible on TV, especially when it goes behind the boards. In fact, keep experimenting with every aspect of your TV coverage. Something’s gotta give one day.
Finally, if the urge strikes to wipe out an entire season over a collective bargaining dispute again, resist it. That didn’t exactly help the cause.
Hockey clearly has its work cut out – especially here in the Land of Lee – but perhaps as the pace of 21st Century life grows faster, the fastest sport in the world might pick up some new fans.
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