NHL Season Begins Tonight!!!
gocatsgo538
Posts: 616
in Sports Talk
The NHL season begins tonight at 7:00 EST!!! Here is the schedule:
Anaheim Ducks at Detroit Red Wings - 7:00 PM EST on Versus
Montreal Canadians at Carolina Hurricanes - 7:00 PM EST
Ottawa Senators at Toronto Maple Leafs - 7:30 PM EST on TSN
Dallas Stars at Colorado Avalanche - 9:30 PM EST on Versus
LET'S GET IT STARTED!!!
Anaheim Ducks at Detroit Red Wings - 7:00 PM EST on Versus
Montreal Canadians at Carolina Hurricanes - 7:00 PM EST
Ottawa Senators at Toronto Maple Leafs - 7:30 PM EST on TSN
Dallas Stars at Colorado Avalanche - 9:30 PM EST on Versus
LET'S GET IT STARTED!!!
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I feel an Avalanche coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Steve
Or... has the NHL basically given up on trying to make the sport more popular in the US?
<< <i>NHL Season Begins Tonight!!! >>
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<< <i>NHL Season Begins Tonight!!! >>
OK... I have a question for everyone. Does everyone think that baseball is a more exciting and intense sport than hockey??? Is hockey one of those sports that no one watches unless their team is doing good??? Just curious.
PAVEL BURE "THE RUSSIAN ROCKET"
I am looking for ANY Pavel Bure cards you might be willing to sell off. Please just send me a PM if you do. Thanks!!
Successful Transactions with: bigfische, BobaFett72, Karb
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>NHL Season Begins Tonight!!! >>
OK... I have a question for everyone. Does everyone think that baseball is a more exciting and intense sport than hockey??? Is hockey one of those sports that no one watches unless their team is doing good??? Just curious. >>
Doesn't matter, exciting and intense is in the eye of the beholder. People appreciate various sports in a number of different ways.
collecting RAW Topps baseball cards 1952 Highs to 1972. looking for collector grade (somewhere between psa 4-7 condition). let me know what you have, I'll take it, I want to finish sets, I must have something you can use for trade.
looking for Topps 71-72 hi's-62-53-54-55-59, I have these sets started
<< <i>Playoff baseball is like no other, you hang on every pitch. Every move is scrutinized. It is very intense. It's like the difference between playoff hockey and the regular season. The big difference in Hocky alot more teams make the playoffs making the regular season not mean as much. Most casual fans don't really start to notice hockey until the last month of the season thru the playoffs. >>
People hang on every pitch... or wish they were hung while having to wait for every pitch. Yawnfest. Further, everyone always says alot of teams make it to the playoffs in hockey, but it's no different than basketball and only a couple more teams per conference than in the NFL (which is basically necessary in a multi-game playoff system). Baseball has already added 2 teams per league (extra division winner and a wild card). I won't be surprised when, because of money, they add more teams.
<< <i>Basketball is on the decline as well. I think maybe ticket prices are an issue as well. I know the Pacers would sell out when the team was good but lately you couldn't give away tickets (literally my company has 10 seats and couldn't give them away due to the cost of parking and food it was still too expensive for most). If you can't watch it on TV and don't have a team locally how do you expect people to care outside of local markets? >>
Well the only way to get organizations to stop raising the prices on food, parking, tickets, etc is to stop paying for them. With the Wings for example, they were such a huge draw for so long that the organization could basically name their price and people would pay it. Until the fans stop showing up, prices will usually continue to go up. Now that Detroit not only faces unsold tickets, but an anemic economy as well, the Wings will be forced to reconsider pricing to get people to continue to come to the games.
Further, baseball struggled for years after they striked. It's no shock that hockey has to this point. Prior to the strike, the NHL was seeing record attendance in areas and even throughout the league. I remember that we went to a Wings game that year (2002) where they announced the league record for attendance had been passed. Anywho, so the league struggles for a bit until the fans come back. Again, it happened in baseball. Remember players like Ripken going around the stadium trying to sign as many auto's as possible, saying they owed it to the fans that had made their way back to the game? It took a while for the fans to come back in full force, so I expect the same here. If hockey never fully recovers, they only have themselves to blame.
The problem with hockey is it's marketing. I live in Atlanta and I never even knew the preseason had started until about 3 games into it.....and I'm a hockey fan. Then there is no build up to the regular season. Of course having 99% of the players being foreign born doesn't help them at all either.
To reply to "Michigan" who mentioned the start of the season during the MLB playoffs, NASCAR and all of football........I think it's a good marketing move. Just think about it for a second. When would be a better time to start than when you have all of America sitting down in front of their television sets, filling sports bars and wanting to watch some sports? It's kind of like that whole marketing slogan.....location, location, location! Don't put your fast food restaurant down the street by itself, put it right next to the other four where all the people are headed.
As far as going to games, average attendance is right about even with the NBA. You'll never reach the attendance of baseball and football, so it's not worth comparing. I think if more people are exposed to hockey, the more fans they'll have. It's such a fast paced, explosive game. The other sports don't even come close in terms of the speed of the game....except NASCAR of course!! haha
GO THRASHERS!!