Give the Puck a Shot

For quite some time now, the National Hockey League has taken a back seat to the dominant sports in this country like Football, Basketball, and Baseball.  The effort to bring awareness to the average sports fan in America has been difficult for a variety of reasons.  Commissioner Gary Bettman has actually done a nice job in bringing revenue to the sport as well as creating a buzz to certain areas of the United States.  Bettman has, in fact, been highly criticized by Canadian hockey supporters for his efforts to "Americanize" the sport of hockey.

In my opinion, Bettman's attempt to increase hockey popularity in America is respectable.  However, I feel as though out of respect for the game, the location of organizations needs to be taken into consideration.  With that being said, it is hard to completely disregard smaller markets.  This link provides some insight on where NHL teams' value rank amongst one another, and if you notice, the smaller market teams tend to be sprayed all over but the majority of them are in the lower third.

My main objective in this post is to hopefully bring hockey awareness to America.  We are so caught up in football, basketball, and baseball that we almost don't even give hockey a chance.  I am at fault too, but I have come to appreciate the sport increasingly over the past season.  However, the NHL doesn't necessarily help their cause because of its lack of media availability.  The NHL needs to do a better job in regards to providing more hockey games on cable TV rather than one game of the week on Sunday on NBC.  This irks me a little bit, especially when I see bowling or billiards on ESPN during the week.  Hockey needs more exposure and we, as the fans control that.  We need to give hockey a chance and increase the interest rates so that the NHL can have reason to televise more games.

Lastly, I have been to a few hockey games and the experience at a live hockey game is unlike any other.  The atmosphere is great and the pace of the game will keep your eyes stuck on the puck for the entire game.  If you can get to the arena to experience the thrill of a live hockey game, I highly recommend it.  All I'm asking is that you give hockey shot, because we as the fans control the puck.