You can't spell hockey without O-K

If it is mid-May, it can only mean one thing: National Hockey League training camps are just around the corner. The only problem is the current season is still a month away from ending.\nI'm not a major NHL fan, but I like it enough that I will switch away from the NBA playoff game, baseball game or VH1's "One Hit Wonders" special that I am watching during a commercial in order to take in a couple of minutes of a Stanley Cup playoff game. (C'mon, admit that Jermaine Stewart's "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" and his subsequent AIDS-related death wasn't the ultimate irony.)\nIn other words, I enjoy the game in short bursts. The defense clears the puck past the blue line, and that's when it's time for me to pick up the remote.\nIf I ran the NHL's marketing department, I would be looking for an easier job. Minorities have no reason to watch because historically there have been so few star minority players. Furthermore, the league's best minority player, Calgary's Jarome Iginla, didn't make the playoffs. Yes, I say this despite St. Louis Blues right winger Jamal Mayers becoming the best player in NHL history named "Jamal."\nMeanwhile, fair or not, the infusion of European players with hard-to-pronounce names has also limited the NHL's popularity. Sure, Anna Kournikova takes delight in Russian hockey players, but casual fans will not easily accept European hockey players just as NBA Rookie of the Year Pau Gasol, a Spaniard, received about as little fanfare as any winner of that award has ever had. Imagine this father-son conversation:\n"Daddy, I want to be just like Juha Ylonen when I grow up."\n"That's great, son, but are you sure you don't care to develop the puck-handling skills of Maxim Afinogenov?"\nThe NHL will instead remain a cult activity for its fans, while the casual fans will always need an explanation. When Boston Bruins defenseman Kyle McLaren leveled the Montreal Canadiens excellent right winger Richard Zednik during their first-round series, breaking Zednik's nose and giving him a severe concussion among other injuries, the casual fan who saw the highlight where Zednik went down in a heap seemingly wondered how McLaren could still walk the streets a free man. The hockey enthusiasts I talked to, though, all somewhat defended McLaren to the point where they didn't think he had grievous intent. The NHL suspended McLaren for the remainder of the series, which the Bruins lost, but it does not seem as if McLaren will suffer any more consequences than what he has already endured.\nWhat surprises me about the lack of a true NHL explosion throughout the U.S. is that most Americans go bonkers over a sport with controlled violence. Witness the continued popularity of the National Football League. Football fans have ennobled the players so much that they literally woof after a linebacker drives a running back into the turf. Most NFL players, however, get thrown out like month-old milk by their teams after they suffer debilitating injuries, and the league's horrible parity-based salary cap has turned winning into such a random occurrence that even the New England Patriots can win the Super Bowl.\nThe NHL also has its share of random violence, but what is worthy of renown in the NFL is somehow viewed as goonery in the NHL. Cover your eyes, children; the fourth lines are out on the ice and the score is 7-2. Fights in hockey seem almost business-like as if the fighters are more interested in putting on a show and defending the honor of their star players and team captain than hurting the opposing player. What is more interesting than a player with his sweater lifted over his head trying to chisel his fist repeatedly into his opponent's temples? Common societal thinking among American sports fans views football players as brave gladiators and hockey players as just one step away from Jerry Springer.\nWhile flying fists are hard to ignore, the casual fan/hardcore fan dichotomy shows itself when trying to answer the question that all observers have wondered for decades.\nWhere's the puck?\nThe bigger aficionados cried out that the glowing puck Fox Sports used in its NHL coverage in the mid and late '90s hurt the game's integrity and insulted their intelligence. Furthermore, hockey bigwigs like Detroit Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman and then-NHL vice president, and current Vancouver Canucks president and general manager, Brian Burke, claimed that the microchips inside the puck that made it glow caused the puck to bounce funny and at times slow down, often leading to fewer icing calls. The average fan often has to trust that somebody has scored a goal when everybody on the scorer's team raises their arms in the air at the same time. Among famous debates in sports, this one will be one of the hardest to resolve.\nWhile Bruins center Brian Rolston skates faster than Kwame Brown drives, even he cannot fix the NHL's main problem: the season takes forever to finish.