I remember precisely the last National Hockey League game that I gave a damn about. The date was June 9, 2001, and I was rooting for the Colorado Avalanche to beat the New Jersey Devils so I could see my boyhood hero, defenseman Ray Bourque, win his first and only Stanley Cup. After I saw him raise the hockey's most prized trophy - alas not in a Boston Bruins jersey, which he wore for 21 seasons - I turned my back on hockey with few regrets. So to my surprise, this winter, I've started watching the Russian Superliga. This triggered some nostalgia about a sport that played such a big part in my growing up.
My departure was a long time coming. I know I'm not alone in feeling betrayed by the way the NHL decided to model itself on the NBA, and shamelessly tried to turn a regional passion into a mass media entertainment product. The Winnipeg Jets became the Phoenix Coyotes, the Hartford Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes. Expansion teams popped up in Atlanta, Nashville, and Miami. The Adams and Norris divisions were soullessly rebranded the Northeast and Central divisions.
This idiotic marketing strategy was doomed from the start. I always believed in part that watching hockey requires at some level playing the game yourself. Hockey isn't like other sports: you get used to lugging around a ton of equipment, you (and your parents) have to adjust to unusual ice times at freezing and empty rinks, showing up at 7 A.M. on Saturday morning, or at 9 P.M. Tuesday night. You drive over state lines through snowstorms for games.
It didn't help that my beloved Bruins fell on hard times in the 1990s. The new owners were too cheap to keep together decent teams, our fabled Boston Garden was razed - "obstructed view" seats and all in favor of a characterless "modern" building. And while the league was going to pot, I couldn't help but think that as bad as it was for us, it must've been soul-crushing for our fellow fans north of the border. It would be like if a group of Canadians decided to ruin baseball.
It really was more than a game, and certainly more than just another entertainment spectacle. It goes right down to the basics. American football's success is due in no small part to how well it fits on television screens. But the first thing people new to hockey complain about is how hard it is to follow the tiny puck as it zips around the screen. When you grow up with the game, you just know where to look. Even the little bright red tracer that Fox Sports had hovering over the puck for a little while failed to make it any easier.
In addition to these fundamental problems of hawking hockey, the league's inept marketing and management made it even harder. It lost the entire 2004-2005 season to a labor dispute. Television ratings remain dismal - in the U.S., games are shown on something called the Versus network, formerly the "Outdoor Life Network," which is relegated to the nether regions of your cable lineup. The league relies on novelty stunts like playing matches outdoors, as when the Pittsburgh Penguins played the Buffalo Sabres at a football stadium this winter.
I'll confess that I don't know much about the Superliga yet, but to my surprise I found myself lingering on the broadcasts longer than on any hockey game since 2001. I started to remember what I liked about hockey.
Russia's hockey tradition is long and exceptional. I remember the first wave of Russian players who took the NHL by storm in the 1980s, and the steady stream of players that followed. And while it is certainly still just the second-best league in the world, the Superliga offers many things the NHL can't. For starters, the fact that teams are based in unglamorous places like Khabarovsk and Novokuznetsk appeals strongly to my sense of fairness.
And unlike the NHL, the Superliga has a bright future. Last summer, thanks to some changes in Russian contract law, a flood of Russian players came home. Russian pro hockey is also set for a major reorganization this year, and it appears that big com-panies like Gazprom, VTB and Rosoboronexport are ready to step up their investment. And though billionaire Roman Abramovich's football loyalties are tied up with Chelsea, his hockey interest rests solely with Avangard Omsk.
Earlier this month, Metallurg Magnitogorsk defeated Sparta Prague in St. Petersburg to capture the European Champions Cup, the fourth consecutive year a Russian team has won the tournament. "Magnitka" is now set to play an as yet to be determined NHL team in the inaugural Victoria Cup this fall. I know who I'll be rooting for, and I invite my embittered former NHL fans to join me.
By Christopher Marcisz
