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I used to write for the BYU newspaper, The Daily Universe. Unable to express my opinions in print – because of the ridiculous creed of “unbiasedness” which is actually not followed at the DU – I looked forward to a time when I was not on staff at the paper. It would allow me to write in occasionally and have my comments published in the Letters to the Editor section.
I have lots of opinions, especially when it comes to the culture that is BYU, but I know it would be annoying and pretentious of me to constantly be writing in letters to the DU (after all, I have this blog to be annoying and pretentious). So I have limited myself to one letter to the editor per semester.
Well, the recent discussion of BYU not having a Spring Break was an issue I thought was worth expressing my opinion about, so I wrote the following letter:
Supposedly, the real reason BYU doesn’t have a spring break isn’t so students can start their summer jobs early, or even to keep students from partying for a week (although, it is common knowledge that the number one rule of BYU is: Thou shalt not have any fun).
No, the real reason BYU doesn’t have a spring break is because of Education Week. That’s right, the one week that isn’t part of any semester that could potentially serve as a well-deserved break for students (that is, if things were shuffled around so the free week was in the middle of Winter Semester) is taken away so old women aren’t deprived of enlightenment and fudge.
There’s nothing BYUSA can do about it since they are nothing more than a glorified activities committee. There’s nothing the students can do about it because this is BYU and their opinions don’t matter. And there’s nothing the administration is going to do about it because, let’s face it, there is a lot of money coming in from those old women buying all that fudge from the BYU Bookstore during Education Week.
So, like many other things at BYU, students just have to suck it up and deal. Either that, or petition the government to add seven days to the calendar.
-Scott Spjut
I e-mailed the letter on a Thursday, and anxiously awaited it to be published in Friday’s edition. When it wasn’t, I anxiously awaited it to be published in Monday’s edition.
It wasn’t.
So then I wrote another e-mail to Brandon, who is the editor for the Opinions Desk, who I worked with while I was a reporter there, and whom I’ve had classes with in the past (needless to say, we’ve met).
The letter I sent on Monday read:
I just wanted to let you know my feelings were a little hurt that my letter to the editor did not run last Friday or today.
I’ve cried myself to sleep every night knowing my voice will never be heard.
-S
This was in jest, of course. My tear ducts were removed at a very early age. But Brandon was nice enough to respond (not until Wednesday, but respond nonetheless).
He wrote:
Stop your crying. Comfort will come.
And oddly enough, that made me feel better.
That is all.
(This article can also be seen at hockeyplayer.com)
In 1980, Lake Placid, N.Y. saw possibly the most influential moment in sports history. We all know the story. The men’s U.S. ice hockey team defeated the Soviet Union at the Winter Olympic Games. The victory for the U.S. unified a country, helped bring an end to the Cold War and told the greatest underdog story of all time. But that wasn’t enough to turn a country of national-pastiming, slam-dunking, end-zone-celebrating fans to the ice rink. Once the fervor of the victory had died down, the players and their sport were mostly forgotten, only to be seen on the occasional highlight reel.
And that’s what happens to most underdogs. Success is never expected, and if achieved, it’s fleeting or even downplayed. Any bandwagon jumpers fall off as soon as next season comes around. But there are a proud few who know what it’s like to always be the underdog – hockey fans.
It’s no secret the National Hockey League is at the bottom of the list when it comes to popularity of team sports in the United States. In a land where football is king, and baseball and basketball sit comfortably, the NHL is often treated as the jester – an enjoyable pastime, never to be taken too seriously. But the dark horse of the NHL may be pulling toward the front of the pack, leaving behind a history of general apathy – and a few failed attempts to improve the game – as it surges ahead into the future.
Hockey – The Other White Sport
“The reason men enjoy sports like basketball and football is because it’s just constant scoring, mindless entertainment,” said Nichole Clark, from Sandy, Utah, who has been a hockey fan since high school. “But hockey is more impressive. There’s suspense. And when they score, it means a lot.”
But more than just the immense talent required to get that three inch piece of vulcanized rubber behind the goalie, hockey elicits a little bit more from its fans.
“There’s a certain amount of analyzation and focus required with hockey. There are a lot more nuances, so you have to pay attention in order to appreciate it,” Clark said. “But when I don’t want to think, I turn on a football game.”
Clark, like many others, realizes hockey has everything any sports fan could want. It’s a perfect blend of power and finesse. It’s a game of speed, strategy and precision. They battle for the oldest (and arguably most coveted) professional sports trophy in North America – the Stanley Cup. There are teams in nearly every major city. Not only that, the NHL isn’t riddled with the steroid allegations, drug rings, arrests, dog fights – et cetera – that seem to be a frequent occurrence in the other major sports. But for some reason, that’s not enough.
“People don’t give it a chance,” said Ed Andrews, season ticket holder with the Carolina Hurricanes. “Lots of people don’t know why they don’t like hockey; they just don’t like it.”
It could be because there’s little motivation for a sports fan to put forth the effort and make the switch to hockey. It’s easy to be a football or baseball fan. No one will question your sportshood when you watch the Superbowl or the World Series, rattling off stats about Brett Favre or that great Satan, the New York Yankees.
But try bringing up Bobby Orr, Maurice Richard or Wayne Gretzky around the water cooler. For some reason, knowing why the Montreal Canadians are called the “Habs,” or how long the New York Rangers went between league championships, or the greatness of the Edmonton Oilers dynasty in the late 80s is, oddly, less than impressive. This gives little incentive to branch out and make that exploration into a new sport. But there’s something about the sights and sounds of the ice – actually experiencing a game – that can get people hooked.
“Sometimes if it’s your first time, it’s hard to get into it,” Andrews said. “But typically, if I take people who have never been, within two or three games they’ll start buying their own tickets.”
Andrews’ love affair with the sport started when the Hartford Whalers moved to North Carolina. He attended the Hurricanes’ first home game against the Pittsburg Penguins, and has been cheering them on ever since.
“I work through the weekends to free up time and money for the games,” Andrews said, even making trips out to Detroit and Philadelphia to support the Hurricanes.
If It Ain’t Broke
Every NHL teams has fans like Andrews – loyal, devoted fans, committed to the cause – but even so, overall attendance in the NHL has waned in recent years. Over half the NHL teams saw a decrease in average attendance from 2001 to 2004. And the overall average attendance across the NHL was down in both the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 seasons.
During all of this, the NHL went through major changes. Hoping to increase scoring and bring in more fans, the NHL instituted several new rules – expanding the offensive zones, getting rid of the two-line pass, stricter penalties. They reworked overtime, ties and points. They wanted to change the perception of the game by changing the rules. But how much change have teams actually seen from those rule changes?
“Absolutely zero,” said Adrian Denny, director of broadcasting, media and community relations for the minor league Utah Grizzlies. The focus for the Grizzlies, like many minor league teams, isn’t so much on harvesting fans as it is just providing an evening out for the family.
“We’re marketing entertainment first and hockey second,” Denny said. “We’ve got a great core of hockey fans here, and that’s outstanding. But we just keep a good product on the ice and keep entertaining the local community.”
But that doesn’t mean the Grizzlies don’t still face the same problems of trying to bring in more hockey fans. They know the more fans they have, the more tickets they sell. But it wasn’t the rules that were keeping people away from hockey.
“The feedback I get is it’s not a good TV sport,” Denny said. “You look at NHL arenas and they’re averaging the same attendance as NBA teams, so the real difference is television.”
Some people have a hard time following the puck as it flies around on the ice. The NHL, hoping to appeal to the eyes-cannot-move-fast-enough crowd, tried to remedy the situation. The late 90s saw the infamous Fox Trax or the “glow puck” – where an electronic device was installed inside the puck so it glowed on the television screen – to help viewers follow the puck’s movement on the ice.
It didn’t go over too well.
“What can be said that hasn’t already been said about the little blue electronic nimbus that rolls around the boards flickering like a flashlight with loose batteries and criss-crosses the ice leaving a stain of disappearing ink leaking behind it?” said Jeff Z. Klein and Karl-Eric Reif in their book “The Death of Hockey or: How a Bunch of Guys with Too Much Money and Too Little Sense are Killing the Greatest Game on Earth.” “It’s distracting, it’s hypnotic, it’s infuriating – most of all it’s insulting, because what it really is this: Screw all the fans in the cities where they know and love hockey … So the game is dumbed down about as far as it can go, short of having a representative from the NHL or Fox actually standing in the living room, continuously indicating where the puck is by using his finger to point to it on the screen.”
Fox Trax was last seen in 1998, but many people expect the development and popularity of high-definition television will help remedy the difficulty associated with following the puck.
Out With the Old, In With the New
Learning from the past, most organizations are done trying to convert fans to hockey. They’re done adapting the game they love to appeal to a crowd that probably won’t change. Hockey fans aren’t going to be found in ballparks or stadiums. Few, if any, are going to want to convert their season tickets from the court to the ice. That’s why most hockey teams aren’t looking for their fans amongst the Cheeseheads of Wisconsin.
“We’re heavily involved with youth hockey. That’s the target market of the NHL,” said Scott Storkan, manager of hockey development for the Phoenix Coyotes. “We try to connect with kids that play hockey because they are, obviously, huge hockey fans. The older crowd is pretty set in their ways. And a lot of them complain because it’s hard to pronounce most of the players’ names.”
For the Coyotes and the rest of the NHL, less emphasis is placed on turning football, baseball or basketball fans into hockey fans. Instead, they’re focusing their efforts on the unadulterated minds of youth. They’re promoting youth hockey leagues and clinics, and turning kids into hockey fans before their lives can be ruined by those sports not played on ice.
“The league is going to be a lot healthier within the next 10 years,” Storkan said. “As bad as it was, the lockout was important. We’ve created a more exciting, open game.”
When the players came back for the 2005-2006 season, it was the start of the new NHL. The focus switched to the future headliners – players like Sydney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin – and technology. The NHL realized they weren’t going to change the perception of hockey by changing the rules.
And it seems to be working.
The past two seasons since the lockout have seen a huge increase in average number of fans at games – especially in Carolina, Pittsburg, Buffalo, Calgary, Nashville and Tampa Bay, who have all seen average attendance per game increase by at least 1,000. An emphasis has been placed on the future of the NHL, and as homegrown talent is developed, the annual NHL draft will have fewer vowel-less last names called out, and more American players at the top.
And the NHL is working hard off the ice and away from the arenas, incorporating technology and making fans a bigger part of the league. The NHL features podcasts and fan blogs, as well as up-to-the-minute scores and video highlights from the games.
“When it comes to technology, the NHL is the best out of the four leagues,” Storkan said. “The internet provides a huge amount of info and accessibility.”
As for us hockey fans, we don’t mind the crazy last names or the fast puck. We love it, and we love talking about it. We’re constantly trying to defend our faith, citing the myriad of reasons hockey truly is the greatest sport on earth. We hope the sport we so desperately cheer for will someday beat out those other sports, taking its rightful place in our society’s athletic culture.
But until then, we don’t really mind being the underdogs.
That is all.
