This should have been a fantastic season for NHL fans.
Sidney "The Next One" Crosby is skating alongside the legendary Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh, while Jaromir Jagr has regained his scoring touch in New York (10 goals in 10 games). A crackdown on obstruction and a reduction in the size of goaltending equipment has improved the offensive flow of the game. And most importantly, hockey is back after a yearlong labor dispute that erased a season.
However, for AU students it's as if the season never began. After the new collective bargaining agreement was signed, I watched as Commissioner Gary Bettman spoke of the 'New NHL' as a league for the fans. Then he went and made a deal that took away my ability to see it.
Over the summer, the NHL walked away from a new deal with ESPN and accepted a more lucrative deal from Comcast Sports, which decided to show the games on the Outdoor Life Network. OLN is offered in millions fewer households than ESPN.
More importantly to me, while four different ESPN networks are accessible in AU's dorms, OLN is not. There will not be a hockey game viewable in the dorms until January, when NBC begins its semiweekly broadcasts.
Even the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals will be broadcast on OLN. To hockey fans, that would be like putting the first quarter of the Super Bowl on HBO Family West.
Right now, the hockey coverage is limited to short highlights on SportsCenter and a few minutes with Barry Melrose each night on ESPNews. Since ESPN doesn't show hockey games, there is no longer any incentive for it to promote a sport that's barely relevant to the average sports fan.
Currently, the only way for an AU student to access a hockey game, without going to the MCI Center and paying at least 10 dollars to watch the pathetic Washington Capitals from the top row of the arena is to listen online at NHL.com.
Yeah, this service is available for free (something you don't hear often in professional sports), but radio doesn't capture the game as well as it does baseball. If hockey is too fast-paced for some people to watch on television, it is impossible to follow the game listening on the radio.
However, I think that the NHL is onto something with its use of the Internet.
Last baseball season, my roommate and I spent ten dollars a month to purchase MLB.tv, an online service that broadcasts all MLB games. Although the video quality isn't as good as television and it's delayed by a few minutes, I could watch any game I wanted.
A similar hockey service could prove to be very successful for the NHL. Not only would it be an added source of revenue for the owners, but it would also cater to the diehard fans.
Hockey has made itself into a niche sport through its labor dispute, but the fans who have weathered the lockout are still passionate about the game. Showing games live online would give them the opportunity to watch the games that most interest them, whether they involvs Peter Forsberg's Philadelphia Flyers or The Battle of Alberta between Calgary and Edmonton. It's an idea that could only improve the league's popularity.
Until the NHL gives me Web access to games, I'll keep listening over the Internet and eagerly awaiting a Thanksgiving weekend date with my NHL Center Ice package.
But hurry up Gary Bettman and finally do something. I don't know how many diehard fans like me there are left, but the number is going to keep dropping.
