NHL does best to kill Olympic hockey buzz

By TIM DAHLBERG
AP Sports Columnist

In Pittsburgh, they cheered louder for a rival goalie than their
own hero, but the home fans couldn’t be blamed. Like anyone else
on either side of the border, they simply got caught up in one
of the greatest hockey stories ever.

The Penguins and Sabres were a decent enough matchup on any
other night. But who could get the drama that was Canada and the
United States just a few days earlier off their mind?

Hockey fans couldn’t, and neither could a lot of people around
the country who wouldn’t know the difference between a Zamboni
and a blue line. They all sat in front of the television Sunday
afternoon as the drama played out on the ice in Vancouver with a
lot more than just a gold medal at stake.

It was the most viewed hockey game in 30 years, and one of the
greatest sports events of the last 30 years. An average of
nearly 28 million people watched in the U.S. alone, or about 27
million more than the average weekend day game on NBC.

The exposure was huge for hockey. The resulting buzz was just as
good.

NHL owners should have been high-fiving each other from one end
of the ice to another. They should have been making plans to
capitalize on the kind of publicity that money truly can’t buy.

Instead, they were muttering about Russia four years from now,
and trotting out their commissioner to make vague threats about
not allowing NHL players to compete.

Talk about a buzz kill.

People into hockey – and that includes almost every resident up
north – have long dreamed of the day when something glorious
lifted their sport from niche status into the mainstream. The
gold medal game did that – if just for one fleeting moment – and
all of hockey celebrated almost as much as Canada did.

But now it’s back to reality. There’s a season to finish, some
interminable playoffs to endure.

And more griping from owners about how, yes, the Olympics were a
nice event, but there’s no reason to interrupt a perfectly good
NHL season every four years to make sure the best players are in
them. Especially if they’re in a time zone not conducive to
prime time TV and if NHL owners aren’t making money on them.

The last part is key, because there’s not much any owner won’t
do if there’s a wad of cash involved. Indeed, that’s part of the
posturing coming from commissioner Gary Bettman, who has to be
hearing plenty from his owners on how the league sacrifices
everything to accommodate the Olympics and gets almost nothing
in return.

Bettman talked during the Olympics about the “destruction” the
games do to the league, then issued a statement after the gold
medal game making sure everyone knew it was really the NHL’s
game and the NHL’s players who made it so special. Bettman’s
message was clear: If the Olympics want to keep using NHL
players like they have since 1998, it will be on terms far more
favorable to the league.

There’s not a lot that can be done about the two-week hiatus the
NHL has to take, but there could be limits on how many players
go from each team and the NHL may push for more control over
licensing and the video from the games. Conceivably, there could
be a cash payment from the IOC to compensate the league for its
trouble.

Russia’s star Alex Ovechkin has already made it clear he’s
playing no matter what, but he’s a superstar and superstars can
get away with things their teammates can’t. If the NHL doesn’t
get its way, he may be lacing them up with a bunch of junior
players.

My guess is all the blustering by the NHL is just posturing
before talks with the IOC and before negotiations on a new
collective bargaining agreement with players. Deep down, even
the most hard-nosed owners have to understand that this is all
good for hockey.

Then again, these are the same guys who robbed their loyal fans
of an entire season of hockey with a lockout that shut down the
league, so don’t sell them short.

It’s not unthinkable to think they would rob hockey fans of
their next Olympics.

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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated
Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org