February 17, 2009
by Stephen M. Lepore
Hey, guess what? Mainstream columnists bashing hockey’s relevance in the marketplace are back! Yay!
Today, our contestant is this idiot with the nerve to call himself Gonzo, from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Well, hey, good luck with that, Bill. Because my first reaction to the news that NBC might bail on the NHL was “hooray.” It made me dream of a world where no one suffers through national hockey games because they will have disappeared from our televisions.
To be clear, I have no beef with the Flyers. Catching the local guys on Comcast SportsNet is fine by me. But I’d rather watch an Arena League Football game – if the AFL were still operating, that is – than settle down for three periods of out-of-town hockey. And I don’t think I’m alone.
Would you be that broken up about not getting the next Calgary-Columbus clash? Would you head out to the bar or buy the NHL package to catch Colorado vs. Washington?
Not long ago, there was a rumor about the NHL putting another team in Toronto. While the hard-core puck heads up in Ottawa no doubt debated the plan, it seemed like hardly anyone south of the border noticed. The NHL could move every team in the league (save the Flyers) to Toronto and it’s doubtful anyone around here would blink. I’m betting the same goes for other American cities, too.
Pure idiocy. Does this guy know that the Flyers were the top dog in Philly (save for the Eagles) until the Phils return to relevance? This isn’t Boston, where hockey’s a solid fourth but has the sport ingrained in it’s culture, or New York, where the game doesn’t go beyond the diehards. This is Philadelphia, where people took shifts defending the Rocky statue from Penguins fans during the Eastern Conference Finals. This is an insult to Philly’s large amout of hockey fans, larger than it’s contingent of 76ers fans in your glorious NBA.
He does make one good point, however:
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