In the NHL's Ice Age, Give Hockey a Shot

In this piece, I will try to change the minds of any and all who don't care about the NHL at all. It's that simple.

If the only hockey players you know are Mario Lemeiux, Wayne Gretzky, Alex Ovechkin, and Sidney Crosby, then there's a problem.

"OK," you're probably thinking, "no, it's not a problem. I'd rather watch LeBron dunk, the Final Four, or an NFL game."

Heck, maybe you'd even rather visit a nearby ballpark to catch a MLB game. Fine. I'm just going to provide a few points to persuade you to respect, watch, and become a fan of the National Hockey League.

Not coming off as arrogant, am I? Well, for those of you who are still reading, thanks, and believe me, once you become a fan, you won't regret it.

There's a great sports proverb that goes "Defense wins championships."

Sounds about right. The 1986 Chicago Bears, 2001 Baltimore Ravens, and 2008 Boston Celtics, just to name a few, all believed in this saying and realized their ultimate goal.

But as fun as it was (or may have been; I wasn't around yet in '86) to watch those teams capture titles in their respective sports with defense, let's be real: We all love watching offense.

Pitchers' duels are great (occasionally), but no one really tunes in to a baseball game in hopes of seeing a 1-0 affair with a total of six hits. I could give examples from the two other major sports, but you get my drift.

We like to watch offense, more than anything else, point-blank, period. And...

Enter hockey.

Every time a team enters the other's zone with the puck, the excitement level skyrockets as fans anticipate a goal. And this isn't something that happens a few times a game. Teams sometimes finish with 20 "scoring chances" in a contest.

When a shot is fired, the game can turn in the blink of an eye. This keeps you on the edge of your seat as you get ready to explode when your team scores.

Granted, you can feel the same way at a basketball game, but after the first basket is scored, is one really worried until the end? That's normally when the pivotal plays occur.

But in hockey, we have to be ready for a game-changing score for 60 minutes.

Yes, I know some hockey games end 2-1 or even 1-0. But even in oddly low-scoring matches like this, there is almost positively a guarantee that the losing team will have various chances to tie the game, and that prospect helps a lot.

I mean, if the entire world is infatuated with soccer, why not hockey?

Yes, I just said that.

The average game in hockey ends 4-3, and I'm not sure of the exact figure in soccer, but I'm sure it's lower. The two sports are very similar; hockey is just condensed into a smaller playing area to create more chaos and intrigue.

Lacrosse deserves a nod here as a similar and underappreciated sport, but to me, there's too much scoring there, making it too much like basketball, in which each goal is watered down.

It's called a "goal" because it's hard to reach!

You have to give the NHL credit. It is the only league that has made drastic changes to their game to try to appease the fans.

The one-on-one shootouts create the biggest stage imaginable. More goals, more screaming faithful.

And all this isn't to say we don't like to see a great defensive performance from time to time, right? Well, hockey also offer you the opportunity of seeing a goalie robbing a player from a near-certain goal.

You're asking yourself what makes that so great?

Well, netminders are constantly taking away something that could have been. Chances to make a comeback, tie a game, or take a lead are stopped by pesky goaltenders in the most nerve-wracking of situations.

Imagine if the opposing team in football could prevent a field goal from going through the posts in the waning seconds of a game with any regularity. Imagine the NBA without its goaltending regulations. Hockey flashes a potential outcome, then takes it away in a split second.

It's just more delicious drama.

And besides offense and defense, hockey offers violence, something else Americans love. There's really nothing more to say.

When Ray Lewis flattens a running back, we jump out of our seats. When there's a collision at the plate, we don't flip the channel. In the NHL, physicality is a part of the game.

You can shove an opponent from behind and crash him into the boards when you want the puck more than him. And the NHL lets their players actually fight. With their fists.

When the players get angry, there's not just trash talking; there's a man-to-man confrontation. And the best part is, the refs just watch and no team is really hurt by the fisticuffs. 

Then there's constant action.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge NFL and NCAA football fan, but after every play is a 30-second rest period. The NBA does a great job of moving play along, but fouls and out-of-bounds calls get in the way a lot. Baseball, golf, and tennis all get knocked for having so much "dead time" in between good action.

The NHL does an incredible job of keeping the contest in motion; these guys do not stop skating!

Now that I've shown how hockey satisfies four basic needs of American sports fans, I figure I should address something that may still be throwing people off: the ice.

Yes, this is a little different from the athletic surfaces you know. Maybe you're asking why they can't just run?

Or you're saying "I live in Florida, I never see ice"?

I get it. But you've got to realize that this is what makes everything come together. It makes an already very difficult game that much more tough.

I mean, can you see Ronaldhino on roller-blades? I don't think so.

The intrigue of the ice evens out the playing field. If you over-skate the puck, it's nigh-impossible to stop on a dime and turn around at full speed. You're penalized for your mistake, as you should be.

And by the way, there are currently teams in such warm-weather locales as Phoenix (though maybe not for much longer), Tampa Bay, Fort Lauderdale, North Carolina, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, and Nashville. Obviously, the sport is still viable in livable temperatures.

And lastly, you've got to respect hockey players. What they are doing is pretty difficult, as I've outlined.

Shooting a puck into a net where the goalie takes up more than the majority of it while the other team is trying to hit you while you're skating on ice? Isn't exactly easy.

The perfect amount of scoring, the passion from the players, the ability to take away a sure thing, the constant action, the physicality and violence, the skill. What's not to like?

And so I ask you, why not catch your city's NHL team's next game on the 'tube sometime soon? There's only about five games left in the current campaign.

Then, you can watch the Playoffs and become hooked. Just give the NHL a shot.