Hockey... The Almost Forgotten Sport

The Stanley Cup Playoffs started this last weekend and to this point it has been a very exciting week.  The Penguins and Flyers are in a very heated battle in which the final favorite Penguins are down 3-1.  The Rangers are tied with Ottawa and Vancouver fought off elimination on Wednesday night.  The playoffs have a way of drawing even non fans to the sport because the play is so high tempo and personal.  Why can't the regular season muster even a little of that excitement?

The biggest problem isn't the games.  Hockey is an amazing sport that requires a lot of skill to play and only a little understanding to enjoy.  Hockey has the worst marketing people in the world working for them, they have very limited exposure during the regular season and there schedules are chaotic for fans to follow.  I think that if Gary Bettman could change at least one of these downfalls then he would see his sport's popularity rise.

The only reason I knew the playoffs were starting in the NHL this year was because of the amount of local sports radio I listen to along with the insane amount of SportsCenter that I watch.  I didn't see one commercial promoting the upcoming games or anything.  The people in charge of marketing for the NHL have to be fired because they received no press and created no buzz prior to or during the the greatest professional championship on the planet.  The NHL used to get it's name out there through endorsement products, but lately  it is rare that you can see anything hockey outside of the arenas that they play in.  The NHL needs to adopt a strategy the spans several networks and multiple medias in order to promote and expand their game.

When and where is hockey on TV these days.  The NHL has 1 nationally televised game a week.  1!  It is played on NBC in the late morning to early afternoon.  Football gets at least 6 games televised a week and  5 of them happen on the same day.  Football only plays on 2 days of the week.  Hockey plays everyday and they can only manage 1 game a week on TV in a lousy time slot that isn't even promoted well.  They show a lot of the same teams playing each other because they want to play the best teams during that time in order to impress potential fans with there product.  It is a bad plan for the smaller markets because they don't get much exposure and it's bad for the sport because if you don't like the Penguins, Rangers, Red Wings, or Bruins then you have no need or desire to watch that one game a week.

Scheduling in the NHL follows the basketball plan.  They play a different team every night that they play and with a season that is as long as the NHL's there is very little importance that can be put on one game.  That is why I feel that hockey should switch to the baseball strategy of scheduling.  Each individual game would still lack importance due to the long season, but loosing 2 in a row would mean loosing a series which in baseball is the bigger issue.  So, while the individual game would remain the same in principal, the way that they are clumped together adds importance to them as a whole in the regular season.  Also, it would add a sense of urgency to games against teams that you know would only face once a year in a series format verses 3 or 4 games spread out throughout a season.

The NHL is hurting and it isn't doing anything at the moment to help itself.  They have major obstacles preventing themselves from increasing their popularity.  Gary Bettman would be wise to make a few changes  in order to improve his sports standing in this country.  If he doesn't then I'm afraid that next year I won't even hear about hockey on the sports networks.

Tracy Called Wrong Player Gutless

A day after Rockies short stop Troy Tulowitzki was plunked by a Ubaldo Jimenez fast ball I heard about the article that caused the event.  Mark Kiszla, of the Denver Post, wrote an article last week about the messy situation that was the Jimenez trade to the Cleveland Indians last season.  The article was Ubaldo's feelings about some of the behind the scene things that were rumored to be happening and his contract situation.  The article also featured Troy Tulowitzki's responses to Jimenez's comments.  Based on Sunday's 1st inning between the 2 teams, I guess Tulo should have kept his mouth shut.

In the article Ubaldo simply talked about how angry he is with the Rockies organization about how he was handled contractually and otherwise by management.  Tuo and CarGo (Carlos Gonzales) were signed to long term deals for a lot of money after a short time in which they had proved their worth.  Jimenez believes that he had proved himself as well when he became the teams ace by winning 19 games in 2010.  He, however, was not signed to an extension and was being paid less than 5 other pitchers on the staff.  I don't know what kind of money he was looking for, but it is safe to say that he was deserving of more than he was making.  There were rumors around Denver last season that Jimenez was sandbagging his season last year and not putting in the work to be what he was the year before.  He had a problem with those whispers and pointed out that he worked hard to get ready for every start and it is insulting to him to be questioned like that.  He had a big issue with the fact that he was forced to pitch on the day he was traded when both he and the organization knew it was going to happen.  He pitched for 1 inning and gave up 5 runs.  He left the bench right after his one inning of work and has been pissed with the organization ever since.

So, after Kiszla talked with Ubaldo he then talked with the Rockies captain and got his take one how Jimenez felt about the situation.  For some reason it appears that Tulowitzki took exception to the things that Jimenez said. Tulo said that he didn't understand the issue with Jimenez not getting a new deal and followed that up with, "He had signed his deal and had years left on it.  Why would we give him something new when we didn't see anything out of him?"  Did Tulo miss the first ever no hitter in club history?  Did he miss the 19 wins which should have been over 20 if the lineup that he was apart of could have delivered some runs later in the season?  Later in the article Tulo says that Ubaldo needs to "put this to an end to this, go pitch and help his team.  Now his new team is questioning him."  Classy, real classy.

I wonder what Tulo would say about Cargo if he ever leaves?

Did I miss the part of the article where Ubaldo ripped into Troy?  Did Jimenez once attack a player on the Rockies squad for anything?  Did he say that Cargo and Tulo didn't deserve the money that they made?  No, not once did he say a negative or throw out an accusation about a player.  Tulo, however, threw Ubaldo under the bus and called him greedy, unprofessional, and questioned his ability to pitch now with his new team.

Jim Tracey called Ubaldo throwing at Tulo gutless, the worst thing he has seen in the majors, and that he lost all respect for Jimenez.  First things first, Tracey had little respect for Ubaldo last year and proved it when he threw him out to pitch the day he was being traded so, it's hard to loose something he really didn't have in the first place.  Second, Troy Tulowitzki is the gutless one in this situation.  Tulo blasted a former teammate in the press for no reason.  Where is the guts in that?  He deserved to get hit by a pitch and he is lucky it wasn't aimed at his head.  Ubaldo may not have done the right thing in handling this situation, but at least he didn't hide in the press.  I just hope that Tulowitzki  learned his lesson and shuts his gutless mouth in the future.