The NHL Needs To Piggyback on Olympic Boost

Gary Bettman, you got me.

I am all in after watching two weeks of the best NHL players compete for a gold medal during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The time to strike is now when it comes to promoting your sport.

Give me more Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, and Zach Parise.

Ryan Miller became an American hero in goal for the United States. Can he be featured in commercials or at the very least a few nationally televised games on NBC? The public will demand to see more of that guy, even if the folks in marketing steal the Nike puppet idea. 

We know Pittsburgh Penguins and Canadian star Sidney Crosby and his contemporary Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals have carried the NHL flag for the last few years in a similar fashion to how LeBron James and Kobe Bryant have in the NBA.

But I want more.

I want a big helping of these young American and international stars on display during the regular season for years to come.

I want to know more about them.

Where do they come from? What colleges did they attend? What makes them tick off the ice? I know hockey players are humble in nature, but the time is now to expose them to the American public.

Millions of people were riveted by the Canada-USA gold medal game. Hockey is a beautiful game. The skill of the athletes rivals those found in other sports—and I did not need a fight on the ice between two goons to enjoy it.

Approximately one in every three Americans watching TV at the time were tuned in to the much-anticipated Vancouver Olympics matchup, which the Canadians won 3-2 in overtime, Sports Business Daily reported.

The national rating was a 17.6. That is a Monday Night Football and NFL postseason number.

That is why the NHL needs to tear up its contract with Versus and find an accessible home for contests.

We live in an era where a push of a button or click of a mouse nourishes our sports hunger. Having playoff games on a network that can't be viewed by a large segment of the public does a disservice to the league and those who wish to follow the sport.

Hockey trails in popularity to the three basic sports food groups of football, baseball, and basketball. Some even say the game lags behind NASCAR.

The Olympics gave the NHL a crack to burst on the scene and steal some of the spotlight away from the NCAA Tournament right before Major League Baseball starts.

In a perfect world, a hockey game should be on nationally every night until the end of the season. But we don't live in such a world, and the NHL TV contract and marketing practices need major overhaul.

The game had an opportunity to draw fans in 30 years ago after a group of snot-nosed American kids won the gold in 1980s.

That opportunity was not taken advantage of then.

Mr. Bettman can't afford to blow this second chance.