NHL: Need Help League

Despite Canada being responsible for many untalented people like Avril Lavigne, Keanu Reeves, Alanis Morissette, Mike Vanderjagt and Celine Dion, some good has come from our neighbor to the north. \nThat good comes in the form of a game. It is the game of ice hockey.\nHockey might not be America’s pastime, but it is definitely the most exciting thing on ice (yeah, it beat out both figure skating and curling). The growing sport took a step back a few years ago because of the lockout, but it is now trying to get back on track.\nThe NHL has gained some young talent that is playing a style of hockey that can only be described by one word – nasty. Daniel Briere, Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin and many more are doing things on the ice that seem impossible to the average man. These stars are doing things even the all-time greats are standing up to applaud.\nBut who knows how good these guys really are? Besides Barry Melrose, me and the five other hockey fans currently living in America, the answer is no one. \nThe lockout killed the NHL to a point of no return. Right now Americans don’t care about hockey, and can you blame them?\nCities that don’t deserve a team (cough, Tampa Bay, cough) have teams, players are sporting names that little kids can’t pronounce, and, most importantly, the games aren’t on TV.\nIf you can tell me what channel Versus is, or even why you would need to know that channel number, then you deserve a cookie and a fist pound.\nIf you can name the Original Six, then you deserve an even bigger cookie and a pat on the back.\nAnd if you can tell me where the Hurricanes last resided, you deserve a cookie cake and a personally signed copy of this week’s column. (If you have the answer and see me around campus, I’ll sign, but the cookie cake is on you.)\nBut the likelihood is you’re going to be hungry with an unsigned paper, and that just shouldn’t be the case.\nThe NHL worked hard to create a new-and-improved, upbeat style of hockey that has more scoring, and even shootouts, to increase the entertainment value. The games are at an all new high. But how are we supposed to know that when NBC shows only one game a week, starting the last few weeks of the season, and Versus (Channel 549 and yes, I ate my cookie) isn’t included in most basic cable packages?\nAmerica wants and needs to be back to a four-major-sport country, and right now we’re at 3 1/2.\nIf America doesn’t do something about this soon, we might get stuck watching the wrong Canadians on TV instead of hockey players. \nAnd no one wants that.