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A token of his affection: our favorite Canadian pays tribute to the World Cup of Hockey

Sporting News, The, Sept 6, 2004 by Paul Grant

Obscurity has a way of sneaking up on you. Take the NHL, for instance. A decade ago, the league was at the top of its game, all happy about positive publicity extolling it as the next NBA. Networks were falling over themselves to ride the wave to the top, paying exorbitant amounts for the right to show the games.

Next thing you know, Jude the Obscure is your mascot. A labor dispute threatens your shrinking visibility in the sports world, and few Americans seem to care. The league had to grovel with NBC to end up with a TV deal one shade north of pay-per-view--as in, we'll pay you to watch it. The NHL has sunk so far so fast that it remains a token sport among media outlets.

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This saddens me. Why? Well, as the token hockey-loving Canadian working within the magnificent spires of the SPORTING NEWS offices, I knOW what it's like to be stereotyped because nobody really knows all that much about who or what you are. For every time the league hears "I went to a boxing match and a hockey game broke out" or "Hockey is boring," I get "How about that one week of summer in Canada?" or "Do you eat a lot of moose meat?"

I'm a big boy, an army of me, so I can handle it. The NHL, on the other hand, isn't doing so well.

The World Cup of Hockey is the best deal to come around in ages, yet hardly anyone outside hockey circles seems to care: ESPN, for instance, isn't televising any round-robin games involving Team USA; it's sliding those to the Deuce to make room for college football and, well, poker. Heck, I heard a story that someone working across he street from Nationwide Arena in Columbus, site of Team USA's training camp, didn't know what was going on. So why should anyone care? I'm here to tell you.

As NHL Insider Kara Yorio wrote in last week's issue, the World Cup is, effectively, the Olympics (minus the harp-string schmaltz): It's the best players in the world playing against one another for a truly global prize. Baseball has the World Series but doesn't invite the rest of the world to participate. The NFL has the Super Bowl, but no other nation plays football at the NFL's level, so it isn't really all that super.

The World Cup is a truer international prize. But try convincing anyone of that who works at a publication formerly known as the Bible of Baseball.

So, NHL, I feel your pain. I know what it's like to be on the defensive, to try to get your message out every day. Be strong. Fight the marginalization. Show your stripes during the World Cup, and maybe someone will notice through the cloud of Olympic hype, baseball pennant races, NFL season openers and the Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup.

Now, if you'll excuse me, nay moose-meat sandwich is getting cold.

A token of his affection: our favorite Canadian pays tribute to the World Cup of Hockey

Sporting News, The, Sept 6, 2004 by Paul Grant

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