10 Reasons Why Football Fans Need To Check Out the 2010-11 NHL Season
With the NFL season now in full swing, football fans find themselves right in the thick of another exciting year on the gridiron. Football fans are a unique breed. They love hard hits, a grueling season, playing through pain and competitive rivalries. Football is life in America.
But football is one day a week. For five months per year. Maybe, just maybe, football fans would find room to be equally passionate about other sports, if only there were a sport that offered everything they love about football.
As a humble hockey fan, I implore football fans across the country to consider turning yard lines and field goals into blue lines and five holes. You may find that hockey offers everything you love about football, and more.
You’ve Got the Home Theater… Now USE IT!
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Let’s be honest, football has done for television what pornography has done for the internet… it gives you a reason to be on the cutting edge of technology.
DVR? You got it so you could record the start of the 1 o’clock games, in case church ran a little long.
DirecTV packages? Now not only can you watch your team win, but you can watch you rival lose at the same time.
High def? Now you’re overturning calls before the coach even throws the red flag.
It’s time to apply these amazing new TV features to a sport that really benefits, and that is hockey. You didn’t watch hockey ten years ago because you couldn’t follow the puck (and nobody watched fifteen years ago because of that annoying glow on the puck), but the HD, 3D, LCD ADHD revolution has changed all that.
Hockey is nearly as easy to follow on television as it is watching it live, and that instantly makes the game more exciting.
Not only does that mean you can see the puck move stick-to-stick on every pass and through the five-hole on the winning goal, but everything about the game is enhanced.
Now you can see every time your team’s star center gets cut by a high stick (that’s four minutes in the box), every time the goalie snatches a sure-goal out of mid-air (you used to have to wait for the Patrick Roy Statue of Liberty save to be able to tell), and every time your powerplay quarterback on the blue line puts a 100 mph slapshot into the top corner.
So, if you’re not willing to get up and go experience the game firsthand, that $5000 entertainment system you put together for worship on Sunday afternoons is the next best thing to give you a feel for the pace, toughness and intensity of the Coolest Game on Earth.
U-S-A! U-S-A!
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Admit it. You watched the gold medal game between the US and Canada at the Olympics back in February, and it felt good to root against the Canadians.
Problem is, you probably didn’t know half the names on Team USA’s roster, did you?
It’s hard to cheer on your country when you don’t even know who is wearing the uniform. So get a head start on 2014 and get familiar with some of the up-and-coming stars who represent the red, white and blue.
The team hasn’t won a gold medal since the Miracle on Ice in 1980, when the scrappy young American team knocked off the juggernauts of the ice, the Soviets on the road to Olympic glory.
After a silver medal finish thanks to an overtime goal by hockey poster boy (and lifelong Canadian) Sidney Crosby, you had better believe that our 2014 team will be every bit as hungry for gold as Mike Eruzione and Co. were in ’80.
A few recommendations: check out a Los Angeles Kings’ game when you get a chance, and keep an eye on the man in the pads. Jonathan Quick lives up to his name, and you can put money on him making the Team USA roster if he continues his stellar play over the next few years.
The San Jose Sharks have eight nationally broadcasted games in 2010-11, giving you a chance to get a good look at playoff phenom Joe Pavelski.
Pavelski proved that he’s the man to watch when the pressure is on, picking up nine goals and seventeen points in fifteen playoff games last season. Expect this young star to shine more and more brightly in the years leading up to Sochi 2014.
Mark your calendars for November 30th (don’t worry, it’s a Tuesday…no MNF on) to see the St. Louis Blues take on the Chicago Blackhawks. Specifically, watch Blues defenseman Erik Johnson take on Chicago’s Cup-winner Patrick Kane.
Johnson and Kane were taken #1 overall in back-to-back drafts (2006 and 2007) and both are red-blooded Americans. These guys will be big names on Team USA’s roster in 2014, so familiarize yourself now so you know which jerseys to buy when you’re ready to put on your war paint and take down the defending champion Canadians, as well as the hosting Russians.
Besides, you know you’ve spent the past two decades trying to find an excuse to cheer against the Russians. And football simply isn’t going to afford you that opportunity.
It's Anybody's Cup
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Most NFL fans have a good sense of whether or not their team will make the playoffs by the time Week 4 ends (sorry, Niners fans) and unless the team pulls off a miraculous run, they play the rest of the year as spoilers and/or making a case for the #1 pick.
It can’t be fun to spend all summer getting psyched that “this is the year!” only to have your hopes dashed before Columbus Day.
Hockey fans rarely have this problem.
One trade, one injury, one hot goaltender can take a team from the bottom of the Conference to a Conference title; just ask a Philadelphia Flyers fan.
The Flyers found themselves fourteenth out of fifteen teams in the Eastern Conference at midseason last year, yet the team qualified for the playoffs and ended up coming two wins away from a Stanley Cup Championship.
The final standings illustrate the parity in the league extremely well. In both the Eastern and Western Conferences, four teams were within four wins of the eighth and final playoff spot, and in total last year, 27 of the league’s 30 teams were within six wins of a playoff spot.
This means that, unless you were a Toronto, Edmonton or Columbus fan, your team was competitive right through the last two weeks of the season.
Wouldn’t it be nice to still be watching your team play with a purpose in the last two weeks of the season? Wouldn’t it, Lions fans?
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Our All-Star Game Is Actually Exciting
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Face it, football is the center of attention for the American sports audience every weekend out of the season, except for one: Pro Bowl Weekend.
No matter where it’s held, no matter when it happens, no matter who participates, the Pro Bowl ends up being a shell of an NFL game.
The best teams don’t want their best players risking injury, so you’re likely to see more excitement and competitiveness in the family pickup game than you are in the Pro Bowl.
In hockey, the excitement begins the night before the game, when All-Star players partake in the NHL Skills Competition, giving bragging rights to the All-Stars who display the best speed, hardest shot, and most accurate shooting abilities.
But the true excitement lies in the breakaway competition, when the players get to display their most fantastic and unthinkable shootout moves. And if you like when players play it up for the fans, the breakaway competition is the spectacle for you; the winner of the competition is now determined solely by fans who text their choice to a number provided by the network.
And the game itself doesn’t disappoint when it comes to hype. While any die-hard hockey fan has an appreciation for great defense and goaltending, in the end, even we acknowledge that there is nothing as exciting as scoring a goal.
The NHL All-Star game winds up being the hockey equivalent of a Pats-Colts game: good defense that simply can’t contain outstanding offense.
The ASG has not featured fewer than nine total goals since 1986, and the 2009 All-Star Game (there was no 2010 game because of the Olympics) featured 22 goals in regulation that resulted in an 11-11 tie between the East and West.
So, how was the competition settled? After neither team scored in overtime, Alex Kovalev and Alex Ovechkin scored for the East to seal the victory in a shootout.
So keep January 30th open on your calendar.
And speaking of the shootout…
We Instituted the Shootout For You. The Least You Can Do Is Watch.
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When the NHL was making its return after the lockout in the 2004-05 season, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman instituted a number of rule changes to attempt to alter the pace of the game and expose the sport to a wider audience.
The most noticeable and influential of these changes was the elimination of ties in the sport through the addition of the shootout.
When a game is tied after regulation, the teams play a five minute, four-on-four overtime session (the four-on-four is to open up the ice and increase the likelihood of a team scoring a goal) and if neither team scores, each team selects three shooters to attempt to score one-on-one with the opponent’s goaltender.
In other words, a team that plays solid defense for 65 minutes of game time is no longer able to flex their defensive muscles and will likely lose the game as a result.
You may find mixed reactions to the shootout among NHL fans, and it is likely that a majority of hardcore hockey fans would prefer to see a tie than see the game determined by the sticks of a few flashy offensive players.
But Bettman didn’t make this rule change with hardcore hockey fans in mind. He made the change to appease the opinions of casual fans and non-fans, who took issue with the fact that a competitive sport could end in a tie (after all, there are no ties in football, right Donovan McNabb?).
Whether we passionate fans like it or not, the shootout is here and Bettman doesn’t seem interested in eliminating it anytime soon.
So, since our commissioner changed the complexion of our sport to make it more enjoyable to people like you, the least you can do is give it a chance, right? We adjusted our overtime rules for you!
But I know you guys are having your own OT rules debate right now, because fans and executive are trying to determine whether or not kicking a field goal in overtime of a playoff game is a fair way to get eliminated. Hockey doesn’t have that problem. In fact…
Playoff Overtime Hockey Is the Most Exciting Event in Sports. Period.
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Hockey fans, like any good sports fans, live for the playoff year. One of the greatest things about playoff hockey is any team can get hot and win (last season alone, a #8 seed knocked off both the fearsome Washington Capitals and defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Philadelphia Flyers came back from a 3-0 series deficit to eliminate the Boston Bruins).
But there is one element of playoff hockey that every fan of the sport looks forward to, universally: Playoff Overtime Hockey (it’s so cool, it warrants capitalization).
Playoff Overtime Hockey is perfection in sports.
There are no commercials during POH, so there are no major breaks in play.
One fluke goal can send the fans home crying and one amazing save can keep the team alive. The game can be over in a flash, or it can go on all night long. The hero can be a clutch superstar, or the hero can be the most unlikely guy on the bench.
Football has seen its share of Super Bowls won on last second field goals and late 4th quarter drives, but thus far, there has never been a Super Bowl won in overtime.
Hockey has seen three of the last eleven Stanley Cup Finals won in overtime, including Patrick Kane’s seeing-eye goal in Game 6 just last year.
Yeah. ANYTHING can happen.
Think 18 Games Would Be Too Rough? Try 82.
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NFL GMs, executives and players have spent the past few months discussing the possibility of turning two of the league’s four preseason games into regular season games, extending the season by two weeks and resulting in a grueling 18 game schedule.
Many players expressed opposition to the plan, citing a likely increase in injuries and a deterioration in playing ability.
With all due respect to the warriors on the gridiron, eighteen games is nothing.
Hockey players play a sport every bit as grueling as football, and they play five times as many regular season games as football players.
Part of the charm of football is the weeklong preparation for next Sunday’s opponent.
That’s all well and good, but wouldn’t you rather watch your sport more than one day a week?
Isn’t that why you plan to watch Monday Night Football even when it’s a less-than-thrilling matchup like Week 12’s Cardinals-49ers barnburner?
Hockey fans get to see their home team take the ice at least twice a week, even three or four times later in the season. Yet, each game still proves to be of importance; just ask the New York Rangers.
After 81 hard fought-regular season games, last year’s team was eliminated thanks to a shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on the regular season’s closing day.
One more win would have put the Rangers in the playoffs; likewise, one more Flyers loss would have made that shootout win meaningless, giving the league a completely different Eastern Conference Champion.
And for any football player resistant to the idea of an eighteen game season: Flyers’ captain Mike Richards played in 112 games last season between the regular season, playoffs and Olympics. Just sayin’.
We've Got More To Offer Than Just Crosby and Ovechkin
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As a football fan, you’re probably glued to Pardon The Interruption every night when you get home from work to listen to Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon offer their analysis of the weekend’s games.
If you watch PTI enough, you may once in a while hear them make a hockey reference, which will without fail include a reference to Sidney Crosby and/or Alexander Ovechkin.
If you can name one player other than Crosby or Ovechkin, then you must have done research outside of ESPN, and therefore you’re on your way to becoming a hockey fan.
If you’re trying to think of someone else and coming up empty, allow me to help out.
Last year’s goal of the year went to…Steven Stamkos.
Who has the sickest tricks in the shootout? Mike Ribiero.
And the most points in the league were obviously scored by Sidney Crosby Alex Ovechkin Henrik Sedin.
But of course, if you still want to believe the hype, then there’s always…
The 2011 Winter Classic
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If you need to wade your way into the world of hockey, then New Year’s Day’s outdoor matchup at Heinz Field between Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals and Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins is the place to start.
The Winter Classic began as a hockey tradition in 2008, when the NHL took the idea of playing an outdoor game (used in 2003’s Heritage Classic outdoor game between Edmonton and Montreal) and scheduled the game for New Year’s Day, pitting the Penguins against the Buffalo Sabres from Ralph Wilson Stadium in New York.
Though only turning four years old this January, the Winter Classic has already taken on a life of its own.
Fans are invited to observe the construction of the outdoor rink over the course of the season.
The participating teams each introduce special retro-style jerseys to be worn during the game.
Immortal figures from each franchise’s history, as well as major figures from the host city are invited to participate in pre-game ceremonies.
And besides, this year features the rivalry that you’ve heard so much about.
If you want to relive the years when Manning had all the stats and star power but was still shooting for the hardware (Ovi and the Caps), and Brady had his championships and was making a good team great (The Kid and the Pens), look no further than the Winter Classic this New Year’s.
Hockey Is the Ultimate Tough Guy Sport
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Football fans take pride in the toughness of their sport, and who could blame them?
Most every football play features pushing, shoving, tackling, helmet-to-helmet contact and even full-speed, bone-crushing hits. You gotta be tough to play football.
But there’s a reason that every time an athlete suffers an injury but walks it off and continues playing, ESPN anchors do not say “He’ll play through it, he’s a football player.”
The phrase goes “He’s a hockey player.”
Toughness has defined hockey from day one, and it would have to for the sport to wait 66 years before the first goaltender decided to wear a mask (and for those who don’t know the story, Jacques Plante put on the mask only so that he could return to the ice in the middle of the game after being hit in the face by a shot).
Obviously, early football players didn’t have helmets or masks either, but there’s a big difference between conking heads accidentally and staring down a six ounce disc of vulcanized rubber being shot at you at speeds exceeding 90, even 100 mph.
Even non-goaltenders are expected to block the puck. By any means necessary.
Yes, the player in that clip blocked a shot with his man parts. And yes, he returned to the ice to finish the series a few days later.
Because he's a hockey player.
Football has big hits, no doubt. But hockey has big hits on skates, which allow you to go much faster and hit much harder. And you don’t land on grass or turf, you land on ice.
Hockey players don’t get tackled when they have possession of the puck.
Instead, they get crashed into the boards.
And the play doesn’t stop, they’re expected to keep moving. And sometimes, your ability to get up after a big hit is the difference between losing the game and moving on to the next round of the playoffs.
Big hits. On skates. On ice. Blocking shots. Taking checks. Playing through pain. 82 times per season. And that’s just to make the playoffs.
You want tough? We’ve got tough.
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