I have two good friends who are diehard NHL fans. They absolutely love it.
One of them has never tried to convince me to watch. That’s perhaps because he is too busy watching on his own, his really cool, historic “Original 6” ball cap fitted perfectly onto his head as he sits by himself in the living room of his lake house.
The other friend mentions hockey just about every time we talk. He never came right out and asked me to watch, but the unsaid invitation was clear.
So, I took him up on “it” and started watching the Stanley Cup Final
between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Becsuse I really like their head coach and think he’s a great guy, I even began rooting for the Golden Knights, despite the fact their color scheme is the same black and gold of TTOE — The Team Over East, better known as the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
This NHL stuff is off-the-charts. The championship series is incredible.
Yup, I’m in — all in.
My one friend will be happy. The other friend won’t give a p- – – (rhymes with luck).
But the point of my story — there has to be a Browns angle in some way if I’m going to discuss it here on this site, right? — is the coverage of the games and the fans. Again, it’s sensational in both regards, ABC with its telecasts and the fans in that they’re going crazy, screaming in full arenas with thousands in watch parties around those respective cities going on elsewhere.
Pro hockey is now a big thing in places where people think it’s cold when it’s less than 70 degrees. What a compelling selling job, marketing plan. Unbelievable. These warm-weather sites have stolen Canada’s game. The Original 6 franchises — both up there and in this country — are nowhere to be found, much to their chagrin and even utter horror.
We’ve seen all this before.
Back in the 1950s and early ‘60s, when the NFL was trailing Major League Baseball in popularity by a country mile, or the length of a typical Ricky Colavito home run, the grid guys were begging people to watch their product, which they felt, rightfully so, was perfectly-suited for TV.
The thing that began to set the stage for the growth of pro football and has led to the product — the sport — you see today came in the late 1960s when then Browns owner Art Modell, in his role as NFL president, was negotiating a new TV contract with the networks. When a deal had been struck, Modell called his good friend, Pete, as in Rozelle, the league commissioner, to outline the details.
Modell gave him the figure.
“Oh, that’s great!,” Rozelle said. “That will divide up nicely for our teams.”
“No,” Modell said, “that’s the amount PER team.”
There was dead silence on the other end of the line. Rozelle couldn’t believe it.
It sounds like the NHL might be starting to head down that same path.
And my friends couldn’t be happier. They were on board long ago.
“What took you so long?,” they’ll ask everybody.
I get it. They were right.
Steve King
