(Pictured above: Beelzebub, in one of several modern forms.)

Growing up, I always heard the most tired of phrases: “Children should be seen, and not heard.”

Before I had a shred of common sense, I had always thought these specific aforementioned children were real. How terrible, I thought, that these kids were all but non-existent.

Friday I turned on the radio, and realized that in comparison to the NHL, those kids are absolute media darlings.

The NHL is already facing an uphill battle, especially in the United States. It’s a difficult sport to get kids into at a young age already, thanks to the physicality and cost of equipment, not to mention that you need twelve kids at least to get a full hockey game going (obviously, you could play shorthanded, but we’re looking big picture).

On top of all that, there just aren’t a lot of ice rinks to go around, so actual ice time is at a premium.

The NHL and hockey, however, are not alone when it comes to obstacles.

Football is also expensive and intensely physical, basketball presents constant league fees and traveling, and baseball requires even more kids that simply aren’t in existence in today’s typical neighborhoods.

So why is it so easy to get and maintain both kids' and adults' interest in other sports, but not hockey?

The answer is that there is almost no widely-available hockey coverage, and what is made nationally available is packaged with all the professionalism of a high-school play.

The interest for hockey is certainly here.  It’s evident in both the exponential growth following the 2005 lockout, and in that up until the early eighties, the NHL regular season gave real and active competition to the NFL regular season.

Thanks to the Rangers, the well-marketed Canadiens, the fact that the Blackhawks were broadcast nationwide on WGN—until the late Bill Wirtz almost took them off the air completely in what old-timers like my father still swear was an attempt to single-handedly destroy the franchise—and incredibly well-marketed players, the NHL had three historic teams with huge draws and recognizable players getting national attention on a weekly basis.

Now, however, it’s almost impossible for the NHL to build a national audience, partly because they have a broadcasting package that can barely grow regional support.

We won’t even bother with comparing an NHL situation to an NFL situation, since comparing anything to the pigskin behemoth is inherently unfair.  We’ll use a league that is much closer to the NHL for stadium capacity, and one that I think the NHL should easily be able to catch—and frankly, have zero tolerance for.

The NBA.

For the sake of getting the point across, we will use “Subject A.” Subject A is nine years old, enjoys basketball and hockey, and fills the void of role models in his life with sports stars.

He has two players he worships above all else, his favorite NBA star, Dwight Howard, and NHL star Joe Thornton.

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