Call me Canadian, but....

Shouldn't hockey be the most popular sport in America?  I mean, outside of the fact that it's hockey, and most of us don't grow up playing it, if you just look at the dynamics of the sport, the story-lines, the structure... it is so much better than all of the other sports... but they play hockey instead of football.  Outside of just the sports of hockey, let's look at the dynamics that make hockey better than all of the other major sports, shall we?

The fighting.
Who doesn't like the fighting?  It's awesome.  But even more than the fight itself, it's what it represents.  Taking football out of the equation, because they self-police on the field, and wear a whole lot of pads, what other sport self-polices like hockey?  I mean in baseball you can throw at batters, but that's no fun.  Who gets excited over someone getting hit by a pitch?  And then the dug-outs clear, oh boy, that's exciting.  Not since Pedro Martinez threw down Zimmer by the head has there been a dug-out clearing event that was intriguing.  It's actually kind of sad to watch.  If I was in the bullpen I would be so pissed if I had to run all the way from the outfield to the infield, so we could stand there and yell at each other.  There's no fighting in baseball, there's just a lot of empty threats and "Hold me back, You're lucky he's holding me back!"  Baseball sucks for that.  

And basketball is even worse!  All of these players who think they're hard, getting up in players faces, literally touching noses, and nothing ever happens.  Charlie Villanueva did threaten to kill Ryan Hollins last year, but who hasn't?  The NBA is full of guys who want to be seen as tough, but when something happens, their first look is for someone to hold them back.  The biggest sign of aggression in the NBA this past season was from Zydrunus Ilgauskus.  He threw the ball at Joel Przybilla's back.  Wow.  Excessive fighting would be a problem, but hard fouls that send messages would be good, maybe a scuffle every now and then (like in the 90's, remember how awesome the bench clearings were?  Jeff Van Gundy hugging Alonzo's leg?  Where did that go?)  In the NBA, if you even look at a player weird, or mumble a curse word, you get T'd up.  Have you ever played basketball in a Church before?  Do you know how terrible it is?  Not because you're in a Church, but because cursing yourself becomes a natural habit for most players, and, I mean, you're in a Church.  That is the only place that cursing should try to be controlled, because the whole cursing in a House of God just seems really, really bad (other than Middle School basketball and lower, you're kidding yourself if you think High Schoolers don't cuss... they do a lot worse than that nowadays).  I say, let the players police themselves, I think a flagrant 1's should be the only penalty- Flagrant 2's would be for fouling to injure a defenseless player, that's just cheap.

The Respect
This goes right along with those fights.  Hockey players fight more than any other professional athlete, and hit each other (with less padding) at least as much as any other athletes.  The amazing thing?  They shake hands after every game.  Just like in high school sports, when you were forced to shake hands with the d-bags you just beat, or the d-bags that just beat you.  You might not have liked it, but it was the right thing to do, and it helped instill respect in youngsters.  In college, they continue that tradition (in basketball at least, I'm sure other sports as well, not usually football though).  But once you get to the pros, they stop doing it.  They are supposed to be role models, aren't they?  I mean, whether they choose to or not, they are.  That's why they're scrutinized for everything they do.  So why does the respect stop?  Basketball players walk off the court almost immediately at the end of basketball games.  Baseball players shakes hands with their own teammates, while the losing team files back into the clubhouse.  Football players kind of shake hands, but it's in mobs in the middle of the field, and not everyone does it, so it's less visible.  Hockey players?  They line up and shake hands one by one.  Isn't that what we want our kids to see?  No matter what happened in the game: cheap shots, fights, blow out wins- it doesn't matter!  They show respect for each other, and set an example for the children, and isn't that what it's all about?  The children?

The Story-lines:
Alleged rapists, dog killers, illegal gun carrying (and leg shooting), Decisions, steroids, gambling, retirements, un-retirements, re retirements, crying, coughing and owners.  These are all common story-lines over the past couple of years in the NBA, NFL, and MLB.  You know what these all have in common?  None of them have anything to do with the actual playing of the sport.  They have to do with individuals, outside of the sports themselves.  Most of hockey's best story-lines, you know, the ones that people who don't follow the sport can catch onto (those are the big story-lines), have to do with the sport.  There's rivalries in hockey.  Rivalries between players (Sid the Kid and Ovechkin) and teams (Boston V Montreal, and probably a whole bunch of others).  The story-line in the Stanley Cup Finals this year was how Timmy Thomas was a virtual brick wall, and the Canucks' goalie basically was about as porous as Swiss Cheese.  Then the finger biting incident.  FINGER BITING!  Are you kidding me?!  That's awesome!  You don't get in-game story-lines (Why isn't story-line one word?  I feel like it should be, I'm not referring to an actual line) in the other sports, at least not as often.  Imagine if in the NBA Finals LeBron bit Dirks finger, and that's how Dirks finger got injured.  So the entire series was LeBron vs Dirk, a showdown, like Bird vs Magic.  Where did those days go?

The Competition
I can't speak for the regular season of hockey, or even most of the playoffs, but it feels like there is just more competition in the NHL.  The #3 seed Bruins just won the Stanley cup.  Yes, that's happened before in the NBA, and the Packers were the last wild-card spot in the NFL.  But do you know how the Bruins won the cup?  They had 3 7-game series.  Three of them!  That's more than all of the NBA playoffs series combined!  We were all hoping that Miami-Boston would go 7, that Miami-Chicago would go 7, and even Miami-Dallas.  I know we all would have been super angry, but how much more impressive would it have been if Miami had been taken to 3 7-game series in a row to win the championship?  It's amazing.  It just feels like the intensity of hockey, maybe because it's on ice, is a lot higher than the other sports, thus making the competition better. I don't know, because I probably watched about 45 minutes of hockey this year, but those 45 minutes were pretty exciting.

Hockey should be the most popular sport in the U.S.  It has everything we want out of sports that our "major" sports leagues don't have.  But I don't think it ever will.  There's just no room in our busy lives for a fourth major sport.  Personally, I'd trade baseball for hockey if hockey was played over the summer, which would be cool anyway because you could go to a hockey game to cool off on a 100 degree day.  But alas, hockey will likely always play second-fiddle to the three first-fiddles that are the NBA, NFL, and MLB.  I think maybe next year I'm going to start watching hockey, try to get it going.. until the NBA lockout is over.