Stanley Cup Thoughts

I won't claim to be a big hockey fan, despite hailing from the self-proclaimed Hockeytown, Detroit. But once every few springs - those that the Red Wings venture deep in to the Stanley Cup playoffs - I make it a point to watch a few games and root on the home team. Honestly, I'm rarely disappointed. This year's playoffs may have been the most exciting yet (I use 'playoffs' loosely, having only watched the finals), with the final two games featuring the highest levels of last-second drama.

Every time I watch playoff hockey, I wonder why I don't do it more often. There is a true feeling of intensity virtually every second of each game, and the selflessness and effort of the players are truly remarkable. Bodies hitting the ice to block shots, passes after passes to maintain possession and set up scoring opportunities, true teamwork to ensure defensive structure even in the most offensive of situations, and a sense of urgency on each play because one mistake can mean a goal, and one goal can be the difference in the series - what's not to love?

Why, then, is it so difficult for hockey to catch on? Why would ESPN have to jettison the sport in favor of...poker? One major reason has to be the business climate that, in a lot of respects, has created major deterioration in sports (and society). In the 90s, with basketball peaking and hockey beginning to show similar levels of star power and excitement (Gretzky and Lemieux playing at a high level, great teams in major markets like New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Detroit), league executives (highlighted by NBA-ex Gary Bettman) made a push to expand the league unnaturally, moving from its Canadian roots to the Sun Belt, and pushing for TV coverage (with gimmicks like the glow puck).

It's a rhetorical question, as we know that the almighty dollar speaks volumes, but why can't sports just be sports? In simpler days, sports were an enjoyable diversion from the monotonous and ugly in life - finance and business on the monotonous end, and crime and scandal on the ugly side. Now, as the worlds of sports and business have merged, the games themselves have taken a backseat to the newsworthy drama - steroids, crime, backroom dealings, sponsorships. Which is what made watching hockey last week such a fun treat - a casual Red Wings fan, I only knew a handful of names on the roster, and the national media didn't give the series much due at all. But the players played hard, the drama spoke for itself, and for a change the action was the top story. The minimalist nature of hockey - forced by its business failures - actually made it more fun to watch, and wishful thinking has me hoping the same can happen in other sports. Maybe it's time we all turned off ESPN for a few weeks, with its off-the-field stories and hype-and-highlight packages turning sports in to a business for the worse.