By Christopher Gabriel
Blog Harbor and CGabriel.com
In NHL terminology, I grew up in the days of the Original Six: Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, Boston and New York. Six teams playing 70 regular season games, 14 against each opponent which made for some very “interesting” evenings at Chicago Stadium, the Forum or any of those great old arenas. Suffice it to say, there were an awful lot of players that didn’t like each other too much.
After the regular season, the playoffs began. Four of the six teams qualified. Four. Two semifinal match-ups followed by the Stanley Cup Final which ended on or around May 1 most every season.
There were no big national television contracts, nothing resembling ESPN, and press boxes usually had extra seats. Let’s face it, there wasn’t a team further west or south of Chicago. Compared to today’s NHL map, this was a very provincial league.
Still, the fans in those six metropolitan areas were as passionate about the Canadiens, Maple Leafs, Blackhawks, Red Wings, Bruins and Rangers as they were about anything in sports. In Chicago, we discussed and argued the Hawks with the same vitriol as we debated the White Sox superiority over the Cubs, or vice-versa. In Detroit, the Red Wings owned the town like they do today and in Boston, where the greatness of the Celtics had already been well-established, the Bruins were the hub of hockey in all of New England. New York loved their Rangers and it goes without saying that folks in Canada were fervently behind either the Leafs or the Canadiens.
Fast-forward four decades and the question on my mind is this: Are sports fans in the U.S. and Canada as passionately involved with the NHL today as fans were back in the days of the Original Six? And with the current Stanley Cup Final showcasing a so-called dream match-up, are the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins capturing the imagination of the nation’s sports fans? For me, that answer is no for both questions.
I love the NHL but I’m far from a hockey wonk. I couldn’t tell you more than 10% of the players’ names throughout the league. But really, does it matter? The game’s the thing, and the game today has bigger, stronger, faster and more highly-skilled players than it did 40-plus years ago.
At the same time, however, it can be fairly argued that with 30 teams, although the today’s best talent is superior to the NHL from the Original Six days, there are also dozens, if not hundreds, of players that never would have made the roster of one of the Original Six teams. It’s no newsflash that the gap between today’s great players and the average players is far greater than in years past.
For the past few weeks, I’ve gone out of my way asking friends their thoughts on the current Stanley Cup Final series. Not one, save my brother-in-law and one of his sons, has the least bit of interest. Mind you, the people I’m speaking to are sports fans of the highest order; knowledgable fans who will watch cricket from India if nothing else was on. Still, bringing up the Red Wings and the Penguins . . . nothing. A number of them have even said something on the order of “who’s playing?”
Perhaps I’m making an apples-to-oranges comparison. Back in the Original Six days, you’d be hard-pressed to find hockey nuts in Nashville, Tampa Bay or Los Angeles. The passion was largely confined to the cities that had teams. Now, with the North American landscape covered pretty sufficiently, has NHL interest increased exponentially even beyond those cities?
League-wide attendance says times couldn’t be better, with an average of more than 17,000 fans per game and over 21 million fans going to NHL arenas this year making this the third straight season the league has set an all-time attendance record.
Adding it all up and bearing in mind the extensive media coverage in print and online as well as the league receiving more television exposure than at any other time in history, why isn’t their more buzz?
A quick check of several sports reports on the local news programs shows the final score on a roll with Major League Baseball scores, and that’s it. Looking around the internet at newspapers from non-NHL cities, the coverage is limited, at best.
The NHL is as exciting a league as anything sports has to offer. Although my Blackhawks have rarely been a factor when the Stanley Cup Playoffs roll around, I usually make sure to find time to watch games in the early rounds, and certainly every game of the finals. But for the past few seasons, I don’t think I’ve watched more than three playoff games.
At the same time, unless we lose power in our home over the next two weeks, there isn’t a chance I’ll miss a single minute of the upcoming Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals series. I have no more attachment to either of those teams than I do the Red Wings or Penguins. Nor do I follow the NBA more than the NHL.
Red Wings-Penguins is a marquee match-up. Star power on both rosters, a great atmosphere in each arena, skill and strong physical play in abundance . . . still, virtually no buzz. There’s been more Celtics-Lakers talk before the series has even begun than the entire Stanley Cup Final series has received so far. For that matter, it’s that way every spring no matter who’s playing in the NBA and NHL finals.
More than anything else, I simply don’t understand it. Although I’ve been an NHL fan for more than four decades, I’m in the no-buzz crowd. Sure, I know who’s playing, what the final scores have been, and how what seemed like a Detroit waltz to the Cup has now turned into a legitimate series with all the requisite drama and subplots. But I’m not watching.
Are you?
red wings-penguins photo, courtesy ap photo/keith srakocic
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4 Comments
June 4, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Yes I am.
June 4, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I watch because I was bred on hockey, courtesy of all the men in my family. I would love to have grown up in the Original Six era though.
June 5, 2008 at 12:28 am
Watched most of it,didn’t think I would, but I thought it was one of the best Finals in the past decade. Definitely better than last year when Anaheim rolled over the Senators. The Penguins, as the young upstarts, played their roll and Detroit, as the seasoned veterans played theirs. It was fast, hard hitting and the goaltending was excellent. The Penguins, if they can keep the team together for a few years, are going to be spectacular.
As far as I know the ratings were higher for the NHL Conference Finals and the SC Finals than the NBA Conference Finals.
I think this can legitimately be called the Third Age of the NHL. The first being the Original Six, the second would be the original expansion until the John Ziegler era ended and then now.
I definitely think the Red Wings v. Penguins had far more talent, and was far more exciting than the Celtics v. Lakers.
June 5, 2008 at 12:47 am
good job by the wings. http://mmafight.ca they deserved it. hockey is just part of canada. but in the states, it’s regional.
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