I know this season isn’t over, but I miss hockey. It might as well be summer. After the Sharks’ early playoff exit it became very difficult to follow the NHL from the greater Bay Area. That’s a shame. The sport has been relegated to a punch line with poker getting better ratings and the MLS and AFL signing TV deals with ESPN while hockey fans need a deluxe cable package to watch out-of-market games. Really? Second-tier soccer and circus football are better options?
The Senators and Ducks face off in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight and if you have basic cable in Santa Cruz County all you’re going to see are the highlights on Sportscenter. Fortunately hockey returns to the mainstream with the rest of the series being televised on NBC starting with Game 3 on Saturday at 5 p.m. Even if your barely a fan, please check out these games for just five minutes. Who knows, maybe we could give the NHL a little boost in the ratings and make more games available in the future.
In the mean time, I have another request:
If you have the VS. network (the only one showing the Senators-Ducks game tonight) and feel like inviting me over my e-mail is rmoses@santacruzsentinel.com. I’ll bring nachos.
This story by the LA Times sums up the current state of the NHL pretty well.
