In the form of a piece by Eric Adelson, writing for Yahoo! Sports (Old-school Habs deserve to be America’s team). Excerpts:
The hockey gods are laughing now. They snicker in the still of Pittsburgh, chuckle in the dark corridors of NHL offices in New York and bellow in the wild streets of Montreal. They kept quiet for so long, so long that fans must have wondered whether they departed for good.
[...]
The hockey bosses, meanwhile, must hate this. Good luck getting ratings on Versus if the Habs face the Sharks in the Stanley Cup Finals. Even the people who learned Ryan Miller’s name in February won’t know more than two names in that series. Get ready for the NHL to be out-watched by women’s volleyball. Again.
But you know what? Too bad. True fans know the NBA playoffs never make jaws drop like the NHL has this spring. The NBA never has No. 8 seeds beating the regular-season champs and then the defending champs, back to back, led by a slow giant named Hal with 50 stitches in his leg. True fans are tired of trying to expand the brand. Sick of trying to follow the puck? Don’t know what the Halak is going on out there? Fine. Bye. Enjoy LeBron James.
I especially like the last bits I quoted. One gets tired of prosetylizing after a while (but we SHALL continue here at EIP, as it's something of a Life Mission for me in my old age), trying to explain the elegance, speed and beauty of a sport to yahoos people who simply don't give a shit. Fine. Bye. Enjoy LeBron.
The fourth Game Seven of these playoffs is on Versus this evening... FOUR Game Sevens and we're not even to the conference finals yet! Once again we few, we proud, we puckheads will be treated to 60 minutes of high drama and spectacular do-or-die athleticism in pursuit of sport's greatest trophy. The action begins at 1900 hrs ET on Versus. I'll be rooting for those B's... see my item immediately below.
The hat-tip goes to Kukla's Korner for both items.
Here's hoping...
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the Lebron kiss-off.
ReplyDeleteStill kind of unsure who to pull for tonight.
Jim: I'm rootin' for ya!
ReplyDeleteAndy: I'm so out of the NBA loop that I didn't know the Cavs were out until three minutes ago. Literally.
You are the die-hard fan. I do like to watch play-off games of any kind and it doesn't really matter who is playing.
ReplyDeleteWow, Buck. I didn't either. My kiss-off comment was in reference to the "Enjoy LeBron James" line in the article. Works either way!
ReplyDeleteNBA is kee-rap.
You are the die-hard fan.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I am. One of the things I miss most about living in Dee-troit is the hockey conversation I used to get, and not always about the Wings, either. Detroit really IS "Hockeytown," a place where die-hard fans would continue to watch the playoffs even if or when the Wings went early. It's a very rare occasion when I encounter fans like those these days. VERY rare.
Andy: Agreed on the NBA. I'll watch the finals once in a great while but that's IT. Any game that takes 15 minutes to play the final minute on the game clock just has to suck, by definition. And the NFL ain't much better, but we won't go THERE.