JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK
Twenty f*ckin years
- Oct 8, 2010
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NHL used to have some shows in that vein (NHL classic playoff series and Frozen in Time), but they just like stopped making them for whatever reason.
Around the NHL: Part XVI - Born on the First of July
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Amazing Kreiderman
Registered User
- Apr 11, 2011
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Yeah. Get me a show called "A Hockey Life" where they have a 50 minute episode about Joe Nieuwendyk's life and how he made it to the NHL.
Sign me up for that stuff
Jaromir Jagr
Registered User
This isn't really a fair assessment. I mean, the NHL isn't crying poverty, but their national marketing has less to do with their abilities and more to do with the fact that hockey has been and always will be a niche sport.
You need an ice rink and a shitload of equipment to play hockey. Every kid grows up playing basketball, soccer. American Football and even baseball are significantly easier and cheaper to play.
Every few years I would have to go buy new equipment and it was always $1,000+. As long as that remains, hockey will not have any sort of national appeal. And I see little way it can be remedied.
Inferno
Registered User
Totally agree. It's cheap to play basketball. I couldn't afford to play hockey till I graduated college and had my own job. I loved it on TV but that was sheer luck of the draw that I was channel surfing and found an exciting game. My parents were both baseball fans.
KirkAlbuquerque
#WeNeverGetAGoodCoach
aufheben
#Norris4Fox
I don’t care if you need a a Lamborghini to play hockey, it costs for all intents and purposes $0.00 to watch hockey. Posting a handful of old highlight clips via one of the most significant social media platforms in the world during one of the sport’s busiest weeks of the year is totally unacceptable.
PK Subban traded? Nah. Rangers sign Panarin? Nah. Marner? Nah. Canadiens swiping right on literally every RFA? Nah. Here’s five Corey Crawford saves from six f***ing months ago. You’re welcome.
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aufheben
#Norris4Fox
Also the cost and importance of playing hockey is largely an excuse. You don’t need to sell meth to enjoy Breaking Bad. You don’t need to max out a credit card to literally play hockey.
Wooden/Street stick: $19.99
Ball: $1.59
Total: $21.58
Soccer games have been a much bigger pain in the ass to setup in my experience. Way more people to round up, way more empty flat space to find (and sucks if it’s not grass,) way bigger nets to find/makeshift, and of the ball isn’t full inflated you’re screwed. Shit I’ve played with a tennis ball before, it’s not even from the same sport.
Wooden/Street stick: $19.99
Ball: $1.59
Total: $21.58
Soccer games have been a much bigger pain in the ass to setup in my experience. Way more people to round up, way more empty flat space to find (and sucks if it’s not grass,) way bigger nets to find/makeshift, and of the ball isn’t full inflated you’re screwed. Shit I’ve played with a tennis ball before, it’s not even from the same sport.
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Also the cost and importance of playing hockey is largely an excuse. You don’t need to sell meth to enjoy Breaking Bad. You don’t need to max out a credit card to literally play hockey.
Wooden/Street stick: $19.99
Ball: $1.59
Total: $21.58
Soccer games have been a much bigger pain in the ass to setup in my experience. Way more people to round up, way more empty flat space to find (and sucks if it’s not grass,) way bigger nets to find/makeshift, and of the ball isn’t full inflated you’re screwed. **** I’ve played with a tennis ball before, it’s not even from the same sport.
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I’d say it’s a combo of (in no particular order):
1. Awful marketing by the NHL.
2. The barriers to entry of playing hockey (cost, climate, risk of injury, etc)
3. The pace of the game in many instances is actually a negative. One of the reasons football is so popular is because the play essentially resets so often - you can be having a convo with your friends and look up and while they may move up and down the field, it’s still a new play. Unfortunately, that appeals to the attention span of most Americans more than the crazy pace of hockey.
It’s constantly blows my mind that hockey is less popular than sports like basketball and baseball. And then I commute to work everyday and I understand why.
Also the cost and importance of playing hockey is largely an excuse. You don’t need to sell meth to enjoy Breaking Bad. You don’t need to max out a credit card to literally play hockey.
Wooden/Street stick: $19.99
Ball: $1.59
Total: $21.58
Soccer games have been a much bigger pain in the ass to setup in my experience. Way more people to round up, way more empty flat space to find (and sucks if it’s not grass,) way bigger nets to find/makeshift, and of the ball isn’t full inflated you’re screwed. **** I’ve played with a tennis ball before, it’s not even from the same sport.
Most people don't know how to skate and never learn. Unlike soccer, basketball, etc., hockey has a prerequisite skill that is anything but innate before it can be played and appreciated fully as a viewer even.
Doesn't exclude basement puck shooting, but I'll say that having lived in CT, WA, and now in Chicago, the #1 complaint I hear about hockey is not being able to follow the puck. Any hockey fan knows that you can watch where and how players are skating at any moment to re-orient yourself, but if you've never skated before, then how could you know what you're looking at?
Thirty One
Safe is safe.
- Dec 28, 2003
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It's far better once you make the jump, though.
Inferno
Registered User
That's total bull.Also the cost and importance of playing hockey is largely an excuse. You don’t need to sell meth to enjoy Breaking Bad. You don’t need to max out a credit card to literally play hockey.
Wooden/Street stick: $19.99
Ball: $1.59
Total: $21.58
Soccer games have been a much bigger pain in the ass to setup in my experience. Way more people to round up, way more empty flat space to find (and sucks if it’s not grass,) way bigger nets to find/makeshift, and of the ball isn’t full inflated you’re screwed. **** I’ve played with a tennis ball before, it’s not even from the same sport.
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To play competitive hockey at any level even the lowest requires a lot of money. A friend of mine had 2 kids playing travel hockey.. he said it cost him a minimum of 10k a year in expenses.
On the flip side I played competitive tennis growing up...my parents probably spent like 500 bucks a year.
Can you play stick ball and have fun? Sure. But that doesn't grow the game. Kids go from playing competitive sports to really growing the Game. I think you saying you just need a ball and a stick completely glosses over the financial difficulty some families, including my own growing up, have with getting their kids into certain sports. My parents had me try out soccer...because it's cheap...tennis, because it's cheap, baseball.
.basketball etc.
Hockey was something I pushed for later because I loved watching it on TV...but I never got into it because .y family couldn't afford to expose me to it growing up.
eco's bones
Registered User
To play ice hockey is expensive as f*** these days. I think the last pair of skates I bought were about $350 and that was about a dozen --> 15 years ago and I probably waited for a summer sale. Back then the graphite stick was just coming in--I have no idea what they go for now but $200?-$250? higher?--could be. An aluminum stick was $100 anyway and the replacement blades--$30-35. That was just shitting around hockey in a rec league with a cheap helmet and pads and paying for ice time every time you played or for the rink use if you were doing roller hockey--more like locals organizing themselves. I think you could easily go through a couple thousand a year just on sticks for one kid you put into a program. The skates, the other hockey equipment, the fees, the travel or the running all over God's creation. Yeah--$8-10 grand I could see it.
Now when I started playing--a good pair of skates---Lange's like Phil Esposito or Don Murdoch used were I don't know--$125--that was by far the biggest expense though. A sherwood or Koho hockey stick--$15 or $20 maybe. I'm sure I bought some sticks cheaper than that. The costs were reasonable--now they're not. Those who play in youth leagues around where I live these days are the sons/daughters of doctors and lawyers, college professors, business owners. No one else can afford it.
Now when I started playing--a good pair of skates---Lange's like Phil Esposito or Don Murdoch used were I don't know--$125--that was by far the biggest expense though. A sherwood or Koho hockey stick--$15 or $20 maybe. I'm sure I bought some sticks cheaper than that. The costs were reasonable--now they're not. Those who play in youth leagues around where I live these days are the sons/daughters of doctors and lawyers, college professors, business owners. No one else can afford it.
I don't understand why people need to play a sport to follow it. I didn't play hockey or football and I'm as big of an NHL and NFL fan as anyone.
Inferno
Registered User
You don't have to be...I wasn't.
But it's about being exposed to the sport...if a sport costs thousands of dollars to play odds are most people won't expose their kids to it when there are other cheaper options.
If a kid isn't exposed to the sport odds are he (or she) won't follow it the way he would a sport he's exposed to. It's just probabilities.
Inferno
Registered User
I've got jetspeed skates..they ran me 350 bucks.. I waited til they were on clearance. I need a specific boot shape and I like the extra support. Now imagine a kid whose growing a shoe size every 6 months to a year or what not... That 350 dollar pair of skates is more like 3 or 4 thousand dollars in skates.
My daughter constantly asks me if she can play hockey with me and my wife...and we say yes... But odds are she's going to have to use donated equipment that the local women's club has to introduce girls to hockey. If we didn't have access to that I'm not sure we could afford to send her to hockey
She loves running around with a stick and a ball so she wants to play in the ice. That goes from 50 bucks to a grand easy if yr buying new gear.
aufheben
#Norris4Fox
This is the #1 complaint I always hear too. Again I still believe the answer is in marketing. That is how we get talking geckos and polar bears drinking soda... exposure, branding, allure. Maybe instead of Doc's rambling madness or Pierre informing the viewers precisely which Tim Hortons a young Boone Jenner took a leak behind, they're explaining aspects of the game, or at the very least not making it even more convoluted with their babbling nonsense. I don't know man, maybe instead of Wednesday Rivalry* Night match-up of the Minnesota Wild vs. Florida Panthers, they do broadcast specifically oriented towards people unfamiliar with the sport. But the bottom line is that none of that matters to people who literally are never exposed to it in the first place. Holy shit they should be shoving someone like PK Subban into pubic view until the guy develops a camera phobia. Ask someone about McDavid they'll probably give you directions to the nearest McDonald's.
When I played as a kid around here, most of us were 1st generation players. Our fathers didn't play, but the Rangers were around, and the Devils came in ten years before we were born. That is how we got into hockey, most here didn't just decide to play, we grew up with it as entertainment through our fathers. And I know just as many people who are huge fans via their own singular exposure; no dads putting the game on, never touching a hockey stick in their lives. And I only played in roller leagues, learning to ice skate and handle a puck took like a day after that. While definitely not the most inexpensive option, it's not 5AM practices and traveling around the state either. Organized hockey to the extent that you guys are talking about requires a lot of commitment, not just financially but from the kids and the parents. Of course that is the only way to produce NHL players, but I don't believe the equation begins and ends there. If the opportunity for that is not available, that's awful, but you can't just like cross them off the list, they can still love the sport, support a team, and maybe provide their own children with the opportunity that for them wasn't available.
I mean if I were appointed Commissioner and I saw that sad YouTube page, first thing I'd do is fire the entire marketing department.
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The Crypto Guy
Registered User
- Jun 26, 2017
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Well then it's official folks. I played hockey in middle school thus:
My opinion on all things related to hockey > Snowblinds opinion on all things related to hockey
Chaels Arms
Formerly Lias Andersson
Also the cost and importance of playing hockey is largely an excuse. You don’t need to sell meth to enjoy Breaking Bad. You don’t need to max out a credit card to literally play hockey.
Wooden/Street stick: $19.99
Ball: $1.59
Total: $21.58
Soccer games have been a much bigger pain in the ass to setup in my experience. Way more people to round up, way more empty flat space to find (and sucks if it’s not grass,) way bigger nets to find/makeshift, and of the ball isn’t full inflated you’re screwed. **** I’ve played with a tennis ball before, it’s not even from the same sport.
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I agree with what you're saying but the costs you're putting up and the two pictures you posted, which are awesome, are both assuming you're playing street or roller hockey as opposed to ice. The NHL has been pretty bad when it comes to embracing and promoting roller or street hockey as alternatives to ice hockey and that's a big mistake.
In my neighborhood everyone got started on the sport by playing roller hockey. The ones that were good and loved the game eventually played ice hockey but even those that never made that switch still love the game and are big NHL fans. There's a lot of snobbery from the NHL and the ice hockey community in general when it comes to street and roller hockey where the perspective seems to be ice hockey or bust.
It's a difficult question. I don't think you're wrong to suggest that the NHL's aesthetic is decidedly LAME. Personally, I choose to watch any and every game I can via Sportsnet or TSN, for the exact reasons you're saying. They can be as dull, but there is something valuable in listening to commentators talk about the sport with some level of detail and attention rather than obsessively shoving 'storylines' at every moment.
But I don't think it's only an issue of branding, or of costs. The reality is that Hockey is historically a geographically determined sport. In that way broader access is a recent trend, something that takes time. I believe that more than marketing in the sense that you've suggested, the NHL should be doing more to ensure that all teams have near-equal opportunity to compete financially. Adding something like the MLB's revenue sharing could help support teams like Arizona, Florida, Carolina, or even small market, but hockey-crazed, Ottawa and Winnipeg. Statistically, it's been proven that winning teams boost the growth of the youth game and local viewership drastically. Hell, I just left Seattle nine months ago after three years of living there—until the team was announced, nobody cared about hockey, then suddenly, there's nothing more exciting or talked about than the new team on the block, everybody takes an interest and everyone who knew me was asking me about it all the time, and trying to watch games with me like I was an insider.
The NHL has done a decent job investing in these non-traditional markets. But they're also (from a 'brand' standpoint) obsessed with tradition as a selling point of Hockey. Thus, they prevent themselves from really going 'all in' on the parity the claim to want so badly.
People not growing up skating makes a difference; your story comes off to me a bit like 'the exception proves the rule'. I grew up in a very traditional hockey market from an American standpoint (my town has the oldest rink in CT) and even there it wasn't common to like hockey—relative to the NFL, NBA, MLB. Firstly, because people didn't understand it at all. It's not even so simply a matter of having played or not played, it's about understanding what you're watching. Back when I started college people used to say about hockey that it's just too violent for them (then proceed to watch football). Then, when the league changed from emphasizing the violence to emphasizing speed, they say it's too fast and they can't follow it.
Ultimately, sports fandom is not complicated. You root for your local teams generally. I hate football but I cheered like a maniac watching the Giants during their two superbowl runs (and haven't seen a game since they were last in the playoffs). People just want winners. So, give them good teams and they'll want to watch.
Amazing Kreiderman
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Boris Zubov
No relation to Sergei, Joe
Same here. Wish I started when I was younger, but I didn't seriously watch the NHL until I was about 11. I played roller hockey in the Long Island City YMCA league for 3 years back in the 80s, from age 14-16. Our team was from Auburndale, (Bayside & Flushing) & the other teams were from neighborhoods all over Queens. The coolest "away" game was always in College Point. Every team, including ours, played their home games in a schoolyard, but the College Point teams played in an actual roller hockey rink with boards. They had such a huge home "ice" advantage. None of knew how to use the boards to make passes, or clear the puck (a roll of 3M Super 88 electrical tape) out of the zone. We got blown out every time we played there.
The only ice hockey exposure I had was when the local pond at Bowne Park would freeze in the winter. What a revelation it was to skate with the puck that actually glided along with you instead of dragging behind on the cement. I think the only actual ice rink in Queens at that time was at the Flushing Meadows Worlds Fair. By the time they converted "Laces" roller skating rink in New Hyde Park to ice, my hockey days were long behind me.
yah that's more pretentious than my meaning, you don't have to know how to skate to watch hockey; but I am speaking to something true about sports generally. it's hard to appreciate what's happening if you've never tried to do it yourself or are ever presented with an opportunity to do so.
I'm not making an 'you've never played so you don't know statement'. If you're experience led you to hockey without any exposure to ice-skating before or during your coming to watch it regularly, great. I don't doubt your insights. I'm just speaking to my experience as a hockey fan in America, in traditional and non-traditional markets. It's a rarity, just as finding a basketball fan who never shot at a hoop is.
Seemed like @aufheben got my meaning, but I apologize if that was an insulting.
aufheben
#Norris4Fox
In the United States, the non-traditional markets should not be viewed as the exceptions, even if the majority of present NHL fans come from hockey cities and/or have played the game (which I'm extremely skeptical of to begin with.) You don't need to understand the sport at the HFBoards-level to enjoy watching and going to games. There's over 300 million people in this country, and while I have no way of knowing this, I'd bet a staggering portion of that population has seen never even seen hockey outside of The Mighty Ducks. Just get the game out there, so what if 90% of them don't understand it or don't enjoy it. I mean, Shit, now that it's on my mind, how many fans did that goofy movie spawn by itself?
That YouTube channel, it's just littered with top-5-this-and-thats; reeks of apathy. Like have you ever gone to a great store, and they don't have a website, or it's a place you've lived near for years and never heard of because they don't advertise? That stuff just drives me nuts. You know, great shops, great services, loyal customer base and they're just kind of content?
Idk man, I already suspected as much, but that conversation I had in LV just really made me wonder: how many Americans are already hockey fans, they just don't know it?
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