There once was a man named Cheechoo. Hailing from the southern tip of the Hudson Bay in Moose Factory, Ontario, Canada, the young and na?ve 25 year old now resided just south of San Francisco, living the proverbial dream.
You see, Mr. Cheechoo had it all: good looks, charm, finesse, talent, and a job that most people would kill for. Always punctual, the successful Mr. Cheechoo would make the daily commute from home to the office, usually working overtime. The HP Pavilion in San Jose, more commonly known as "The Shark Tank," was his home away from home, his one obligation being to maintain absolute perfection throughout the facility by cleaning up messes, and closing shop at the end of the day. He did just that. With the help of another employee, a Mr. Thornton, suddenly thousands upon thousands of people were lining up outside the Pavilion, all anxiously awaiting to observe Mr. Cheechoo's marvelous work.
But no matter how consistently superior he was or how much his organization thrived amongst its competitors, Mr. Cheechoo still remained an obscure character, flying invisibly under the radar as the year progressed. This story that I tell is real and Mr. Cheechoo is not a fictitious character, nor is he the long lost cousin of Thomas the Tank Engine or the head custodian for the local aquarium. He is in fact a professional hockey player for the San Jose Sharks who managed to lead the NHL in goals last season with 56, and all of us missed it.
There once was a time before Jonathan Cheechoo. It was a time of fighting and hostility, with passion and glory intertwined: good old fashioned hockey, when arenas were filled to capacity nightly, the two-line pass was illegal, and the ice was more frozen than Carlos Beltran facing an Adam Wainwright curveball. It was a time when Brett Hull scored season-ending goals in the crease, Ray Bourque hoisted a Stanley Cup, Chris Simon became interchangeable with John Rocker, Mario Lemieux came back, Eric Lindros got concussions, broadcaster Gary Thorne screamed something other than "Good-bye! Home run!" and Steve Levy did something other than auditioning touchdown celebrations for Ocho Cinco (that's Chad Johnson for the non-journalist), Zarley Zalapski owned the coolest name in sports, the Anaheim Ducks were still Mighty, Jim Carrey won a Vezina trophy instead of an Oscar nomination, and Dominik "The Dominator" Hasek...well, dominated. Yet now, the wonder of it all has been completely and utterly exhausted. But how?
The last great NHL game came on June 7, 2004, when the Tampa Bay Lightning won its first Stanley Cup beating the visiting Calgary Flames 2-1 in Game 7. Shortly after that there was a yearlong lockout?something to do with money I guess?and after that, the rules changed, goalie pads shrunk, scoring increased, new networks emerged, and ultimately, the NHL has officially become the Arena Football League: airs on NBC occasionally, including some playoff games, but other than that it has become merely a scoreboard spectacle to be viewed on ESPNEWS' Bottomline.
In other words, the NHL is like the Power Rangers: Awesome when we were younger, then disappeared for a while, resurfaced, and it's just not the same as it was before; in fact, it's much worse.
Being a diehard New York Rangers fan my entire life, I was almost relieved to see the NHL lockout materialize. The blue shirts hadn't made the playoffs since 1997, and to be honest, I was too mesmerized by the great Isiah Thomas taking the reigns as GM of the Knicks to notice, let alone care. My infatuation with Zeke galvanizing basketball in New York was short-lived, however, for obvious reasons I don't wish to discuss, so when hockey reappeared with Rangers sporting a youthful club led by the legendary Jaromir Jagr, I was eager to watch some much needed puck. But wait, what channel is it on?
In the spring of my sixth grade year, my after-school routine was simple: get home, do homework, eat and watch playoff hockey; turning to ESPN to hear that triumphant opening song was second nature to me at this point. Last year, the Worldwide Leader in Sports?which reaches 90 million households?cut ties with the NHL, ceasing to televise its games for the 2005-2006 season and beyond. Thankfully, however, sensing fans' despair, the Outdoor Life Network?which reaches just 63 million households?took the liberty of televising indoor hockey games. And with an unfamiliar tune and a channel nestled somewhere in the mid 60s, this apparently oxymoronic network made the NHL practically vanished once again.
This past offseason, I became ecstatic when I learned of the Rangers' signing of superstar left wing Brendan Shanahan, who was tied for second in the league in goals heading into Wednesday with 12. Yet the only glimpse of the future Hall of Famer that I have seen thus far is an image of No. 14 during a preseason game in a photo gallery on ESPN.com. Hey, it's not my fault I don't get the OLN (or VERSUS, the last frontier) in my room.
In a recent poll conducted by The Sporting News, 33 percent of SportingNews.com users claimed that they have watched an NHL game from start to finish this season, while the remaining 67 percent said they have not. Compare that to the experts, the Sporting News staff, who were at 20 and 80 percent respectively when posed the same question.
Truth? The NHL is unwatchable...literally. It is no longer on a major sports network frequently enough to engage fans (only the ardent ones; normal enthusiasts won't even make the effort), there is too much scoring in that a team that lets up five goals in one game can feasibly still win the game by at least two, and there are also way too many teams. Because Rihanna isn't around unfortunately, I'll try my best to respond to hockey's present S.O.S.:
1. Beg ESPN to take the NHL back, even if it's a one-year deal. Or why not FOX with its infamous blue puck and red tail? That would get it back on the air in a desperate attempt to revive whatever there is that's left.
2. Bring some of the old rules back. I love the shootout, because according to Jeremy Roenick, ties are like kissing your sister. But resurrecting the normal-size goalie pads in place of the current ones that barely fit your average Cabbage Patch doll, and making the two-line pass illegal again would certainly assist in making hockey hockey again.
3. Contract or move several teams. NHL franchises have no business being established in cities like Phoenix, Nashville, Columbus, Miami, or Atlanta. The NHL could then make its boldest move (they happen everyday according to Ford anyway, so what's the harm?) in history and relocate each of those teams to various Canadian cities like Winnipeg, Regina, Quebec City, Saskatoon, and possibly Halifax; thus bringing hockey home.
The game today is filled with talented young stars like Sydney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Alexander Ovechkin (if you have not seen it yet, please watch Ovechkin's highlight reel on Google Video) and is still exciting to watch at its incredibly rapid pace. But nobody notices because in reality, it isn't there. Almost every time I meet someone new, it seems like we always end up discussing sports at some point during the conversation. I ask them where they are from, and who they root for in baseball, football, and basketball. But when I ask them who their favorite NHL team is, 99 times out of 100 they will grin and then respond with, "I don't really follow hockey." They just don't care. And apparently, neither do we.