The Jester’s Quart: Simply Fixing the NHL

[Greg_Wyshynski]

The solution to professional hockey's problems isn't found in salary caps or luxury taxes or franchise players or "cost certainty." All of those machinations exist to keep a sinking ship afloat, and to ensure it'll miss the iceberg on ensuing voyages. They don't address the actual problem, which is...
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[Ishkur]

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

The popularity of hockey isn't the problem.
The popularity of NHL hockey is.

The Hockey-Hating American Media has been quasi-orgasmic in questioning where the "outrage" is when it comes to the lockout,

Something I explain the reason for fairly adeptly right here.

(says it's by Mike, but that's wrong. It was an old article I wrote that he saved, before the current incarnation of the site)

Summed up: American media is not going to want to spend time on something that's not genuinely American. And when they do, they seem to like to--whether consciously or unconsciously, I don't know--ignore the fact that it's not. You are a shining example of this (not meant to be an insult, just something apparent).

For instance:

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

The other reason we're not outraged

Correction: Canadians are outraged, which, at this point you gotta admit, is all that matters to hockey. So saying you are not outraged is really saying "We who don't think we would miss it if it's gone are not outraged." Been to Canada recently?

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

How many cameras are utilized in a garden-variety NHL broadcast? Two, maybe three?

I count 16: 3 main sideview cams up in the press box or upper deck usually (80% of the game will be from this view, they are redundant in case one conks out), 4 corner ice level cams, 4 net cams (one under the top bar, and one at the surface at the back, per net), 2 overhead cams, 2 behind the net cams which provide an AWESOME view during powerplays, and one roaming cam that they rarely EVER use because it's difficult to follow the play and its constant mobility shifts perspective a lot and confuses watchers, but it's really useful in case it catches something the other cams don't and the instant replay guys need something else to rely on.

The reason why you've never heard nor seen these cams is because...

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

On ESPN or ABC

Well there's your problem right there: I have seen American broadcasts of hockey before. It is vastly inferior to Canadian broadcasting, and I'm not surprised that it doesn't catch on down there. Seriously, take a page from the CBC or the TSN: they've been doing this stuff for 50 years, and they got it down to a science. You can't treat the game like football and show one view during the play, and different views when the play is over. You can't treat it like baseball, where the ball is rarely moving and there's no direct need for urgency. And you can't treat it like basketball, which only requires ONE VIEW 99% of the time.

The big problem is that the game just doesn't stop, thereby allowing television commentators to talk about what just happened and what they think will happen next.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

The NHL and NBC have clearly stated that they feel HDTV technology will make a difference in hockey on television, and they’re right.

If you have trouble following the puck now, HDTV isn't going to make much of a difference. It's not that people in America can't follow the puck because their TV clarity sucks. They can't follow the puck because they don't understand hockey. Any 5-year old kid in Canada raised by Hockey Night in Canada can follow the puck no problem, and when it goes to the near side of the boards and dissapears (something of a bane to American sports broadcasters), just by watching the players telegraphed movements they can gauge where it is and where it's going to go. It's a learned trait, but you're not going to acquire it overnight.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

Cameras everywhere, including those wicked cool rail cams that ESPN used during the Heritage Classic in Edmonton.

ESPN didn't use those. That was CBC, ESPN was just stealing their feed.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

If you want to keep the three division/two conference format, then create a hybrid of the Major League Baseball and NFL schedules.

Heh. There you go again: American solution for a Canadian problem. The reason why the NHL doesn't do that is because there already ARE rivalries, but only in Canada--ie: the teams you conspicuously forget. Canadian teams want to play together because they're passionate about hockey and love earning the bragging rights of becoming Canada's Team.

Rivalries don't magically form when you make two teams play together a lot. When you were a kid, did you ever try to trap beetles or spiders in jars and then try to get them to fight? ....but they'd just sit there? Rivalries form when there is a concerted effort and passion towards the game by the players and the fans to defeat the other team. If the fans feel it, the media will feel it, the cities will feel it, and it will rub off and make the teams feel it too. Detroit-Colorado started this way. Vancouver-Colorado started this way. There was also Vancouver-St.Louis for a time last year. The Mayors of both cities actually crank called each other's houses.

This came about not through excessive play, but through the involvement of each team's respective city. Vancouver and Toronto hate each other, and they only play each other ONCE every year. Hell, EVERY Canadian team and Toronto hate each other. Especially Ottawa. And that's because of this country's obsession with hockey.

In the end, ultimately, fan interest solves everything. And you're just not going to find much of it south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

(What about getting rid of the red line? I thought goal-hanging was something NHLers left on the pond.)

All unfounded. It actually adds a new dimension of play, especially if you have a good goalie with accurate passing, and the other team has a sloppy change. Removing the red line opens up a lot of new tactics, and for those who fear the long pass--it's a low percentage pass, and prone to getting picked off easily. If you wish to risk it, go right ahead, but seriously it's not worth it sending a cherry picker out and having an odd-man rush and probably scoring chance against you as a result.

Scoring doesn't equal good hockey. Scoring CHANCES equals good hockey. The puck in prime scoring areas creates excitement. The puck stuck in neutral zone limbo might as well be soccer. Solution? Drop the red line, shrink the neutral zone, move the nets back to where they were before to create a bigger scoring opportunity zone (affectionately known as the slot) in front of the net. It's always puzzeled me how the organizers of this game had no problem making rule changes like crease play, instigator, and behind the net space--changes of parts of the game that no one really thought had anything wrong with them--but are adamantly stubborn with making changes today to a game that is undeniably broken. What are they waiting for?!!? Shrink the damn goalie pads, no-touch icing, tag-up offsides, no two-line pass, and let's get on with it. How hard is that to do?

[Greg_Wyshynski]

Originally Posted by Ishkur

Something I explain the reason for fairly adeptly right here.

(says it's by Mike, but that's wrong. It was an old article I wrote that he saved, before the current incarnation of the site)

Summed up: American media is not going to want to spend time on something that's not genuinely American. And when they do, they seem to like to--whether consciously or unconsciously, I don't know--ignore the fact that it's not. You are a shining example of this (not meant to be an insult, just something apparent).

I guess that's why the Olympics are traditionally ignored every two years.

Or Wimbledon.

Or the British Open.

Or golf in general.

Hockey is a Canadian sport; the NHL is a North American (emphasis on "American") league. There's a difference.

Correction: Canadians are outraged, which, at this point you gotta admit, is all that matters to hockey. So saying you are not outraged is really saying "We who don't think we would miss it if it's gone are not outraged." Been to Canada recently?

I'm an American hockey fan. That's all I can be. Hockey's not a religion or a way of life or anything that Canadian xenophobes slam American fans for not treating hockey as such. But it is by and away my favorite sport and has been for my entire life.

In speaking with American hockey fans (you know, all three of us), it' s apparent that we're all very upset that this lockout is occurring, but the majority of the fans I've spoken to don't have faith that the NHL's leadership will be willing to change the way they market and legislate the sport to make the NHL a success. Are Canadian fans happy with the way Bettman's NHL has managed the sport?

Well there's your problem right there: I have seen American broadcasts of hockey before. It is vastly inferior to Canadian broadcasting, and I'm not surprised that it doesn't catch on down there.

Yeah, that sort of was the point of the column.

Seriously, take a page from the CBC or the TSN: they've been doing this stuff for 50 years, and they got it down to a science. You can't treat the game like football and show one view during the play, and different views when the play is over. You can't treat it like baseball, where the ball is rarely moving and there's no direct need for urgency. And you can't treat it like basketball, which only requires ONE VIEW 99% of the time.

Can't say I don't agree with you, because I do.

If you have trouble following the puck now, HDTV isn't going to make much of a difference. It's not that people in America can't follow the puck because their TV clarity sucks. They can't follow the puck because they don't understand hockey. Any 5-year old kid in Canada raised by Hockey Night in Canada can follow the puck no problem, and when it goes to the near side of the boards and dissapears (something of a bane to American sports broadcasters), just by watching the players telegraphed movements they can gauge where it is and where it's going to go. It's a learned trait, but you're not going to acquire it overnight.

You're half right. It is learned trait that comes with watching hockey for years. But I've seen HDTV hockey, and it's easier to follow the play, if only because you get to see more the ice. Power plays, for example, can be shown without the camera hardly moving.

And question the clarity of the picture all you'd like, but have you ever tried to watch World Juniors on 17-inch screen?

ESPN didn't use those. That was CBC, ESPN was just stealing their feed.

I've been corrected on this by a few people, and you're right. The point was that those rail cams are the kind of equipment American broadcasters need to utilize for hockey on TV.

Rivalries don't magically form when you make two teams play together a lot. When you were a kid, did you ever try to trap beetles or spiders in jars and then try to get them to fight? ....but they'd just sit there? Rivalries form when there is a concerted effort and passion towards the game by the players and the fans to defeat the other team. If the fans feel it, the media will feel it, the cities will feel it, and it will rub off and make the teams feel it too.

Exactly, which is why a return to divisional play will be a benefit for hockey. It's not about two teams playing a lot; it's about two teams battling for the same playoff spot. Washington, Carolina and the Florida teams aren't rivals now. But if the stakes were raised, and the only way they're getting into the postseason is through each other, then the games are naturally more intense.

As far the hybrid schedule, I think you're right in that the NHL needed to maintain its natural rivalries. But there's simply no reason for the Oilers to visit the Caps every year. That game should be used for Philly or the Rangers or the Lightning. That's better for the NHL and for fan interest.

In the end, ultimately, fan interest solves everything. And you're just not going to find much of it south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Where are we going to find it then? Winnipeg and Quebec?

The Mason-Dixon Line comment is an interesting one. Where do you think these hockey fans in Florida are from? Backwater towns that only know about the ice in their drinks? Or have many fans "south of the Mason-Dixon line" migrated from Northern locales?

And are you questioning the success of the Dallas Stars and the dedication of their fans?

All unfounded. It actually adds a new dimension of play, especially if you have a good goalie with accurate passing, and the other team has a sloppy change. Removing the red line opens up a lot of new tactics, and for those who fear the long pass--it's a low percentage pass, and prone to getting picked off easily. If you wish to risk it, go right ahead, but seriously it's not worth it sending a cherry picker out and having an odd-man rush and probably scoring chance against you as a result.

Talk to the players. Eliminating the red line will open up an entirely new can of worms when it comes to defensive systems, and it will ulitmately do more to harm the offensive flow than help to it. If you think the dump and chase is boring now...

And interesting about your first point: If you take away the red line, could you still restrict goalie movement and expect good puck-handling keepers to show off their abilities?

I think we agree on a lot of points in so far as opening up the game and creating offensive chances. (And the fact that you didn't advocate the shootout makes you A-OK in my book.)

[Ishkur]

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

I guess that's why the Olympics are traditionally ignored every two years.

May I bring to your attention: The Olympics Triplecast.

Ever since that debacle, NBC found out that the average American just can not be bothered with watching sports about other countries in other countries live, so learning from the experience they have vowed never to do anything like that ever again.

Now, the Olympics features only Americans winning things (or, if the human interest story is really good, a foreigner winning or at least participating in something where they had to overcome adversity just to be there, fleeing from a tyrannical country where their family was sent to the gulag years ago, training in the USian land of freedom along the way), taped, edited and given that smarmy Bob Costas recap narration for your pre-packaged primetime mass consumption.

And it still doesn't get very good ratings. Not compared to March Madness or the Superbowl, at any rate.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

Or Wimbledon.
Or golf in general.

It's funny, because John McEnroe was talking about this just last year: Tennis in America has been declining in interest ever since Agassi and Sampras ceased to be threats to go head-to-head in any given Grand Slam. Sure, there's Roddick (and if you want to be million-to-one-long-shot about it, James Blake or Taylor Dent), but he's too inconsistent to really capture America's heart the way a Jimmy Connors could.

There's the women's tour, of course, and Americans represent that well, but for some reason the press still wants to be talking about Kournikova. For some reason.

Golf: same thing. America pays attention when America wins. Or when it involves America. It's like the presence of other countries is too anti-climactic or something, the best matchups really pit Americans against each other. Davis Cup is crazy-ass popular overseas. Here......it's a rolling tumbleweed compared to Duke vs. UK.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

Are Canadian fans happy with the way Bettman's NHL has managed the sport?

Bettman can't set foot inside Canada, less he gets his testicles ripped off with a pair of rusty plyers. There are people up here determined to do it too, if they get the chance. The guy is seriously a slimey grin away from getting shot. This is no joke. With each passing today, we keep thinking to ourselves "Fuck, it's OUR game. Why are we letting this guy get away with this?" NHL headquarters is starting to look like the French Bastille on July 13, 1789. A bloodthirsty revolution is coming. Just as soon as we finish our beer.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

And question the clarity of the picture all you'd like, but have you ever tried to watch World Juniors on 17-inch screen?

I grew up watching grainy black&white Hockey Night in Canada on my lil 15" TV in my room back in the 80s. I never had a problem figuring out what was going on.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

Exactly, which is why a return to divisional play will be a benefit for hockey. It's not about two teams playing a lot; it's about two teams battling for the same playoff spot.

No, its about their respective cities CARING that two teams are playing each other at all. There could be all the bad blood in the world, bench brawls, name calling, wife cheating, real Slap Shot stuff between them.........if either city's sports section has highschool basketball on its front page or Spring Training updates instead, that rivalry just doesn't manifest. If you ask the mayors and they say "we have a hockey team?", it just doesn't matter. If the buses don't have "Go team Go" on their electronic displays beside their route numbers, if sportstalk radio doesn't have the team's trials and tribulations as the topic of the hour and people don't phone in talking about it, if a big motorcade of obsessive fans don't decorate their cars patriotically and then travel to the opposing team's city and stir shit up in the stands at the rematch.............then none of that shit matters.

The great secret (and irony) about rivalries is they don't actually involve the teams. They involve the passionate devotion to the teams by their respective cities. You hear about the Montreal Riots of 1955? You know what started that? Rocket Richard took a cheap shot at a referee and the league suspended him for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The whole city went BALLISTIC and fucked shit up like it was the Rodney King trial. THAT'S a rivalry. You're just not going to see that coming out of Carolina. The people just don't care enough. The game is not an ingrained part of their culture.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

Where are we going to find it then? Winnipeg and Quebec?

You haven't seen serious fan support unless you've witnessed the legendary "White Noise" movement of early 90s Jets arena, when they were in the Playoffs. Winnipeg and Quebec were moved so the league could find bigger markets with potential television broadcast dollars, not because of dwindling fan support. It was painful. There were 560,000 signatures on a petition, which is crazy because Winnipeg was only a city of 500,000 people! It was like all of Manitoba--and probably Saskatchewan too--came out to see them. And yet none of that mattered. The NHL didn't care, the owners didn't care, Bettman certainly didn't care. He was determined to sink this franchise into mediocrity for the cheap and easy buck, and the problems we have today largely result from bonehead decisions like that one.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

The Mason-Dixon Line comment is an interesting one. Where do you think these hockey fans in Florida are from? Backwater towns that only know about the ice in their drinks? Or have many fans "south of the Mason-Dixon line" migrated from Northern locales?

And are you questioning the success of the Dallas Stars and the dedication of their fans?

Funny you should mention that. When Pavel Bure was traded to Florida there was a popular picture of him with his shirt off stepping out of the Canucks weight room with Gino Odjick. The guy was seriously ripped. Florida papers got hold of the photo and printed it. Marketing dept. of the Panthers grabbed it and used it in a campaign about this new player they just acquired aimed at--yes, the gay community. Pavel, with his boyish, fetching good looks and stocky, beefy frame, was a natural heartthrob for neo-Pathers fans, most of whom were female, gay, and/or cared little for hockey. The crowd of Panthers games after that moment was a little.........how should we say.....odd.

And its easy for Dallas and Colorado to acquire fan support: they inherited good teams. The jury's still out on whether they will continue to support them when they inevitably decline, however. We shall see.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

Talk to the players. Eliminating the red line will open up an entirely new can of worms when it comes to defensive systems, and it will ulitmately do more to harm the offensive flow than help to it. If you think the dump and chase is boring now...

And interesting about your first point: If you take away the red line, could you still restrict goalie movement and expect good puck-handling keepers to show off their abilities?

The dump and chase is NEVER boring, and is in fact one of the better strategies in hockey. Canada won the recent Juniors on the strength of their dump and chase. They wore down every team's defence that way. It's a time-honoured trick, invented by Gordie Howe, and it's designed to create confusion and scoring opportunities in the offense zone, not avoid them. What IS boring is the dump and don't-go-get-it. 5 guys, stacked on the line. The trap. Team carries it out, check them and throw it back in again. See, this is where eliminating the red line would help, because you don't have to carry the puck out where you'll inevitably get checked. You can try an up-and-under like in Rugby, ricochet the puck off the boards, or start your own dump in chase about 20 feet early because you don't have to advance the puck past a certain point. Look at how it was done in the Olympics or World Juniors. Those who think that removing this archaic restriction will slow down the game just aren't very creative at thinking about hockey.

And restricting goalie movement is stupid. Have it like lacrosse: they're allowed to go whereever they damn well please. But once they leave the crease, they're fair game. Hit them for all it's worth.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

I think we agree on a lot of points in so far as opening up the game and creating offensive chances. (And the fact that you didn't advocate the shootout makes you A-OK in my book.)

Shootout is not hockey. Hockey involves passing, hitting, checking, and fighting too. Penalty Shot is meant to restore a lost scoring opportunity. There is no merit in a shootout. It's such a european way to decide a game. Either earn your win through the proper perameters of the game, or don't win at all. Increase to 10, 4-4. I like that.

[Greg_Wyshynski]

Originally Posted by Ishkur

May I bring to your attention: The Olympics Triplecast.

Ever since that debacle, NBC found out that the average American just can not be bothered with watching sports about other countries in other countries live, so learning from the experience they have vowed never to do anything like that ever again.

Now, the Olympics features only Americans winning things (or, if the human interest story is really good, a foreigner winning or at least participating in something where they had to overcome adversity just to be there, fleeing from a tyrannical country where their family was sent to the gulag years ago, training in the USian land of freedom along the way), taped, edited and given that smarmy Bob Costas recap narration for your pre-packaged primetime mass consumption.

And it still doesn't get very good ratings. Not compared to March Madness or the Superbowl, at any rate.

1. The Olympics TripleCast was a titanic failure of marketing and misjudging what fans would pay for the Olympics. It's failure had nothing -- not a damn thing -- to do with showing foreign athletes or foreign sports. Any other interpretation is complete revisionist history.

2. The Olympics do not only feature Americans winning things. They feature the best competition of the night, and usually involve an American athlete. Are you saying NBC wouldn't show an all-Russian figure skating final? Because you bet your ass they would.

3. The Olympics don't get Super Bowl ratings...which means other than the finales of M*A*S*H and Seinfeld, it's just like every single other program in television history.

It's funny, because John McEnroe was talking about this just last year: Tennis in America has been declining in interest ever since Agassi and Sampras ceased to be threats to go head-to-head in any given Grand Slam. Sure, there's Roddick (and if you want to be million-to-one-long-shot about it, James Blake or Taylor Dent), but he's too inconsistent to really capture America's heart the way a Jimmy Connors could.

There's the women's tour, of course, and Americans represent that well, but for some reason the press still wants to be talking about Kournikova. For some reason.

Golf: same thing. America pays attention when America wins. Or when it involves America. It's like the presence of other countries is too anti-climactic or something, the best matchups really pit Americans against each other. Davis Cup is crazy-ass popular overseas. Here......it's a rolling tumbleweed compared to Duke vs. UK.

Your contention is that American fans don't care about "foreign" sports. You've proven yourself wrong when you talk about a player like McEnroe or Connors or Tiger Woods. These are sports as alien to the United States as hockey, and in tennis's case have nearly the same kind of ethnic mix. Yet they can be, and still are, popular with fans, and are covered intensely by the media.

I grew up watching grainy black&white Hockey Night in Canada on my lil 15" TV in my room back in the 80s. I never had a problem figuring out what was going on.

And bully for you. The point is that HDTV makes hockey easier to watch.

The great secret (and irony) about rivalries is they don't actually involve the teams. They involve the passionate devotion to the teams by their respective cities.

Would this be a Canadian view of an American problem?

As cities, Denver and Detroit don't really have a gripe. Neither do Philly and Toronto. Yet put these teams on the ice, and you have intense and wonderful hockey. It has little to do with the fans and everything to do with what happens on the ice. Your example applies to georgraphic rivals, but it's a generality.

You haven't seen serious fan support unless you've witnessed the legendary "White Noise" movement of early 90s Jets arena, when they were in the Playoffs. Winnipeg and Quebec were moved so the league could find bigger markets with potential television broadcast dollars, not because of dwindling fan support. It was painful. There were 560,000 signatures on a petition, which is crazy because Winnipeg was only a city of 500,000 people! It was like all of Manitoba--and probably Saskatchewan too--came out to see them. And yet none of that mattered. The NHL didn't care, the owners didn't care, Bettman certainly didn't care. He was determined to sink this franchise into mediocrity for the cheap and easy buck, and the problems we have today largely result from bonehead decisions like that one.

Check the attendance figures for the Jets. It's not as if they sold out every night.

As for being a boneheaded move -- you can argue that Phoenix was the wrong place to relocate the team, but are you saying that having teams in Winnipeg, Quebec, Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary would have made this league financially stronger than it is today?

Funny you should mention that. When Pavel Bure was traded to Florida there was a popular picture of him with his shirt off stepping out of the Canucks weight room with Gino Odjick. The guy was seriously ripped. Florida papers got hold of the photo and printed it. Marketing dept. of the Panthers grabbed it and used it in a campaign about this new player they just acquired aimed at--yes, the gay community. Pavel, with his boyish, fetching good looks and stocky, beefy frame, was a natural heartthrob for neo-Pathers fans, most of whom were female, gay, and/or cared little for hockey. The crowd of Panthers games after that moment was a little.........how should we say.....odd.

And its easy for Dallas and Colorado to acquire fan support: they inherited good teams. The jury's still out on whether they will continue to support them when they inevitably decline, however. We shall see.

I'm not sure where you're going with that strange homophobic rant. I was just saying there were a lot of transplanted New Yorkers in Florida.

As for Dallas, you said that hockey can't thrive in the American south. The Stars are in Texas. If you're saying they'll go in the tank if and when they stink, that's pure speculation.

The dump and chase is NEVER boring, and is in fact one of the better strategies in hockey

.

We'll just agree to disagree on this one. And I say that as a Devils fan

[Ishkur]

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

Your contention is that American fans don't care about "foreign" sports.

No, my contention is Americans only care about foreign sports when Americans are winning them. Or are featured prominantly in them all the time. How many hispanic tennis players can you name?

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

Would this be a Canadian view of an American problem?

No, this is an overall symptom of all sports. Look at the rise of the "nation" of sportsfans. Raider Nation. Red Sox Nation. Yankee Nation. No one ever talks about the Seahawks Nation--I'm sure the people in Seattle love their team very much, but that's why they don't have any rivalries with anyone. There could be one developing with the Rams because the Rams beat them 3 times this year including the playoffs, and ousted them from the playoffs last year too.....going by your logic, a rivalry should brew from that, because they're in the same division, they fight for the same spot, and they play each other a lot. But I don't see any rivalry. If you squint your eyes, its easy to forget there's even a Seattle team that plays football.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

As for being a boneheaded move -- you can argue that Phoenix was the wrong place to relocate the team, but are you saying that having teams in Winnipeg, Quebec, Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary would have made this league financially stronger than it is today?

I think they'd actually be playing HOCKEY, for one. Because at the moment it's not financially anything, and that's largely because of this new school of American owners who want the lucrative profits of sports business and are determined to get it if they have to hold the players upside down and shake them.

Originally Posted by Greg_Wyshynski

I'm not sure where you're going with that strange homophobic rant. I was just saying there were a lot of transplanted New Yorkers in Florida.

And canadians, whom the Panthers organization chose to dismiss, thinking that the only way to generate interest in hockey was to hit markets that never had any inclination of liking hockey before.