Kukla's Korner Hockey
Next entry: Rangers On Letterman
Previous entry: Scott Niedermayer Might Get His $500,000 Back
A Comeback?
by Paul on 04/21/08 at 05:30 PM ET
Comments (2)
from Bill Simmons at ESPN Page 2,
Look, sometimes a sport can just evolve in the wrong direction. It happened to tennis, it happened to pro wrestling and it definitely happened to hockey. This was a sport that thrived on rivalries and feuds—Montreal and Boston, the Rangers and Islanders, Philly and Washington, Montreal and Toronto, Montreal and Quebec, Montreal and everybody—so by moving key franchises and adding too many other ones, fundamentally, they were killing the one thing that made the sport so great. As a Boston fan, how am I supposed to get fired up during the regular season for a steady stream of Nashville, Columbus, Carolina and Anaheim? It’s insane. It’s illogical. Hockey should never have more than 22 teams, and half those teams should be playing in Canada, where it’s the national sport and the citizens truly care about the game.
before you come to a conclusion, keep reading…
Filed in: NHL Teams, Boston Bruins, Montreal Canadiens | KK Hockey | Permalink
Comments
The NHL has evolved into a sport with all die-hard fans and no casual ones. They need to get the casual ones back.
Why. I keep hearing about these casual fans from writers and how important they are to the NHL and they never say why. Why are mr. and ms. casual fan so darn important and why should a league risk alienating hard-core fans in order to get casual fans?
Look, I guess you could call me a casual fan of other sports. For instance, I’ll watch Sunday at the Masters and maybe a bit of the US Open, bits and pieces of the Super Bowl (if its close), the last four or five minutes of a game seven in the NBA, the last five or six laps of Daytona, bits and pieces of the Mens and Womens US Open finals in tennis...etc. Now how exactly am I important to those sports? I’m not buying their apparel or buying products because they are being endorsed by players of those sports, nor am I converting to a full-time fanatic. I might say a few words in passing to a friend of mine if something interesting happened, but I doubt that is something that registers on anyones scale. Is it just fodder for sportswriters and sports talk shows because casual fans might call into a sports show or read an article, thus impacting their business models, or do casual fans really matter to a sport?
Posted by UMFan from Colorado on 04/21/08 at 10:47 PM ET
Add a Comment
Please limit embedded image or media size to 575 pixels wide.
Add your own avatar by joining Kukla's Korner, or logging in and uploading one in your member control panel.
Captchas bug you? Join KK or log in and you won't have to bother.
Most Recent Blog Posts
Niklas Kronwall Out After Knee On Knee Hit By Laraque
Brian Mullen’s Heart Still With The Rangers
Dealing With A Make-Shift Lineup
Sutter Trying To Find The Fire In The Flames
Cory Stillman Out With Knee Injury
What’s Troubling The Avalanche?
Rangers Need More Consistent Play
About KK Hockey
Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.
From breaking news to in-depth stories around the league, KK Hockey is updated with fresh stories all day long and will bring you the latest news as quickly as possible.
Email Paul anytime at
Kukla’s Korner is always a free service for readers, but it costs some money to maintain. If you’re ever in a position to donate a few dollars to help out, we’d be very appreciative.
Hockey Links
As a Boston fan, how am I supposed to get fired up during the regular season for a steady stream of Nashville, Columbus, Carolina and Anaheim?
Step one: Pretend it’s 2008, not 1988.
Posted by Earl Sleek from Los Angeles, CA on 04/21/08 at 05:07 PM ET