And We're OFF!

OK… I really SHOULD have included this in today’s omnibus post, but the fact is this event deserves a post of its very own. And Lo! Here’s the exceptional bit… a paean to the world’s greatest sport, in The Guardian (UK)… of all places (“NHL demonstrates global appeal on season opener… The Stockholm crowd had their imagination captured by the Pittsburgh Penguins' overtime defeat of the Ottawa Senators”). Excerpts:

And while it is neither my natural disposition, nor indeed my job, to look on the bright side, I am honour bound to say this: the National Hockey League's second excursion into Europe has been a peach.

Last year the league brought its bandwagon to London, starting the 82-game regular season with two fixtures between the Los Angeles Kings and the Anaheim Ducks (whom I liked a great deal more when they were known as the Mighty Ducks) at the 02 Arena. I can still vividly recall the thrill I felt that these two teams were visiting my adopted home city. Even so, the part of me that I would sometimes like to keep quiet knew that the league's first overseas adventure was only a partial success. The teams were an odd choice, the games were not classics, the atmosphere was stilted. It wouldn't be true to say that hockey is to England what cricket is to Canada, but it wouldn't be entirely untrue either.

For the start of the 2008 campaign, the NHL has taken more care. With two games in Prague (where yesterday the New York Rangers beat the Tampa Bay Lightning by two goals to one) and two here in Stockholm (Pens and Sens, the latter captained by Swede Daniel Alfredsson) the world's best league took one of the world's best sports to two countries that understand and care about 'the on-ice product'. For the National Hockey League, this is a product which they're hoping to sell; their spokesman doesn't need much prompting before he's turning on the marketing speak, making it clear in the slickest possible way that this enterprise is about brand awareness and global positioning.

This it may well be, but here's the thing: no amount of corporate business plans and entrepreneurial buzzwords can obscure the fact that last night in Stockholm's fabulously upholstered Globe Arena, 14,119 people saw a game that is part of their national culture played at a level that most here will only have seen on television. And as you know, hockey on TV is not really hockey at all. How can it be? You can't even see the puck.

[…]

The majority of people within an arena that looks like a giant bonbon wanted to see a victory for the Ottawa Senators, a victory for their Swedish captain. Midway through the first period I predicted the evening would end with the Canadian team in therapy. But this didn't last, and the Sens rallied, prospered and entered overtime with the scores tied at three goals apiece. But with less than 60 seconds of the five-minute fourth period remaining, Tyler Kennedy pounced on Jason Spezza's errant pass and blasted home. Game over.

Only the game has just begun. This time tomorrow the Penguins and the Senators, the Rangers and the Lightning, will be on their way home, to continue the work that started here. But while the NHL will always be North America's league, on loan to Europe for the briefest of glimpses, tonight proved that hockey also has a home on the continent to the east. The great players may work abroad, but their audience is everywhere.

I’ve excerpted this piece much more heavily than I usually do… but only to emphasize the universal appeal of the game, which is significant. We who live on the North American continent can only be glad that we’re treated to the best hockey has to offer, day in and day out. For that I’m eternally grateful.

The Wings play their opener on October 9^th, in a game that will be nationally televised on the Versus network. I’ll be there, with bells on. The game itself will be secondary, Gentle Reader, as it’s early days in a long, long season. Nope… what I’ll REALLY be tuning in to watch is the raising of the “2008 Stanley Cup Champions” banner to the Joe Louis Arena’s roof. And hoping for a repeat in 2009.

GO WINGS!!