The NHL is suffering from low ratings. While they pay untalented underachieving players millions of dollars, no one is watching. The only networks covering the sport are OLN and NBC (On Saturdays). The NHL is a fifth tier sport that trailed NBC's poker series for the week ending 05/07/06 according to Zap2it (http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,272%7C%7C%7Csports,00.html). This is sad. The NHL players and owners feel that NHL players deserve multi-million dollar contracts, even when NBC's poker series rates better. This is supposed to be the NHL playoffs. Why aren't the ratings higher? The simple answer is that NHL boss Gary "NBA ? Bettman has destroyed the game. This guru took hockey away from its roots and the people who loved the sport and took it to the sunbelt of the south. His plan hasn't worked and he's alienated the true hockey lover like myself who'd rather watch North Dakota play Minnesota in a WCHA college game. Bettman destroyed professional hockey in Winnipeg. Like other Canadian cities, Winnpegers are hockey lovers. The Winnipeg Jets moved to the retirement capital of the west, Phoenix Arizona. This little plan has failed, even though Wayne Gretzky coaches the team and owns part of the Phoenix Cayotes. The NHL has lost its fan base and has become a "who cares ? sport. When someone tells me that there's a playoff game tonight, I say "who cares ?. This league means nothing to me anymore. The NHL used to be a league of superstars who were passionate about the game. Winning meant everything to those players, even though their salaries weren't that great. The current so called professional hockey player doesn't give a rip about the game or its fans. They care about the greenback and the greenback only. When these goons have finished counting their loot, they can be seen fighting with another so called professional hockey player. So what you have left is a greedy player who is more concerned about roughing it up with a fellow player, then actually playing the game of hockey. Who's to blame for this? Like any organization the blame must fall on the leader. Since Gary "I made the wrong Bet ? Bettman runs the NHL "snooze ? show, he must take the blame. |
