Posted in: Random: Hockey | Comments(0) | December 27, 2004

Ways to better the NHL

Today marks the 100th day of the NHL lockout. 470 games including the All-Star game have been canceled. The deadline is January 14, 2004. Negotiations won’t start until January 3rd at the earliest, but I doubt they will reach an agreement. The players have already started compromising with the 24% pay reduction across the board resulting in saving $511 million over the next three years. The owners, with Bettman as their leader, refuse to compromise at all. And have the nerve to ask for a salary cap AND a 35% pay cut to some of the higher paid salaries.

At the start of the lockout, I thought that it was both the owners and players fault for the position the best hockey league in the world was in. However, I now place a lot of the blame on the owners, well specifically Bettman.

So why is the NHL in this economic slide? Why is it no longer considered one of the 4 major sports?

1) Poor marketing. Instead of choosing to advertise star players and even teams in their respective cities, the NHL decided to use Michelle Kwan, Shania Twain, and Jim Belushi. Twain’s and Belushi’s commercials were designed to help explain the game and its rules. Commercials explaining the rules of the sports are not going to attract new fans. Show highlights of great goaltending, hard hitting, maybe even a fight or two, great goals, and some skilled puck-handling (ie. Datysuk’s deke of Turco). That is what’s going to attract fans, not Michelle Kwan with her awful looking shot. Pay good advertisers to come up with highly marketable commercials, not these corny ones starring non-NHL players. By having better marketing, the NHL will hopefully find a higher attendance at its games across the country and better TV ratings. Better TV ratings will lead to higher TV contracts. The revenue from these contracts are split amongst the team so the higher the TV contracts, the higher the teams’ revenues.

NJmonak10 at the Lets Go Wings forum suggested a commercial where hockey is compared with some of the best of other popular sports:

“A crushing tackle in football, then a blind sided hip check in hockey.
A diving catch for an out in baseball, then I think it was Mike Vernon that had the diving stick save highlight. A slam dunk over Shaq, then the Lang goal in last year’s playoffs where he overpowered one of the Preds. A boxing clip then a hockey fight. A hundred meter dash, then a footrace for a breakaway. You could even have something like archery then show Roenick sniping the top corner. Then at the end you could have a lame slogan like, ‘NHL, it’s the best of the best.’”

2) Too much expansion. When Bettman came into the NHL from previously running the NBA, he expanded the league from 21 teams to 30. With 30 teams across the US and Canada, the talent pool has become diluted. Some of the locations where expansion teams were placed do not have the fan base to support a NHL team. “There are too many teams, especially in southern outposts far removed from where hockey has always thrived,” William Gildea of the Washington Post said. “The NHL has made the mistake of pulling up from its roots, trying to make itself a national U.S. sport. It isn’t. It’s a regional sport.” In the 2003-2004 season, the Nashville Predators and Carolina Hurricanes finished in the bottom three for attendance with an average of 13,200 fans or less per game. “The NHL in markets like Nashville, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, Anaheim, Raleigh…I could go on and on…doesn’t make any sense,” Howard Bloom, publisher of SportsBusiness.com, said.

Some players support contraction blaming Bettman for expanding the league where it doesn’t belong. “You get rid of six or seven teams that don’t belong where they are … Some states just aren’t marketable, some cities,” Detroit Red Wings Chris Chelios said. “Hockey’s not a national sport in the U.S., and Gary Bettman doesn’t have a feel for that. That’s my opinion.”

3) Let teams play against traditional rivarly opponents. The Red Wings are lucky if they play Toronto once a year outside of playoffs. The Original 6 should be able to play at least a couple games among each other. Teams with rivalries should be able to play against each other more than once each season as well.

4) Make certain changes to the game itself like decreasing goalie pad size and other suggestions made by that GM meeting and Shanny’s summit.

5) The league shouldn’t have to suffer the business mistakes of certain hockey teams. Every owner should be held responsible for bad marketing or foolish business mistakes.

6) Get rid of Bettman.

Posted in: Features, NHL News | Comments(1) | December 24, 2004

FSN’s “Best of the Wings”

Tonight FSN featured the season opener game from last season against the LA Kings. I was so excited that they were showing this game because seeing Yzerman score with 1.7 seconds left in the game to win, 3-2, was absolutely amazing.

They have one more “Best of the Wings” game left in this group of games:

Thu. Dec. 23, 8:00 PM: Game 7, ‘02 Western Conference Finals, Red Wings vs. Colorado Avalanche (Red Wings 7, Avalanche 0)
What was expected to be a nail-biter turned into an early rout as Detroit sent Patrick Roy out of Colorado for good.

Posted in: Wings News | Comments(0) | December 23, 2004

“Believe” Wristbands

You probably have seen Lance Armstrong’s yellow “LiveStrong” wristbands designed to help raise money for cancer research. Other organizations have made their own wristband for causes like AIDS and muscular dystrophy.

The Detroit Red Wings organization has created a wristband of their own. The red rubber wristband has the word “Believe” on the front and “DRW est. 1926″ on the back. Proceeds go to Ilitch Charities for Children, which benefit children mainly stricken with cancer or AIDS in this area in education, health, and recreation.

To order, visit DetroitRedWings.com or go to Hockeytown Authentics in Troy. You have to purchase a minimum of 5 bands at the cost of $12 (including shipping).

Posted in: Wings News | Comments(0) | December 20, 2004