The Front Row with Tim Dahlberg March 8, 2010
NHL doing its best to kill
In Pittsburgh, they cheered louder for a rival goalie than their own hero, but the home fans couldn't be blamed. Like anyone else on either side of the border, they simply got caught up in one of the greatest hockey stories ever.
The Penguins and Sabres were a decent enough matchup on any other night. But who could get the drama that was Canada and the United States just a few days earlier off their mind?
Hockey fans couldn't, and neither could a lot of people around the country who wouldn't know the difference between a Zamboni and a blue line. They all sat in front of the television one week ago as the drama played out on the ice in Vancouver with a lot more than just a gold medal at stake.
IT WAS the most viewed hockey game in 30 years, and one of the greatest sports events of the last 30 years. An average of nearly 28 million people watched in the U.S. alone, or about 27 million more than the average weekend day game on NBC.
The exposure was huge for hockey. The resulting buzz was just as good.
NHL owners should have been high-fiving each other from one end of the ice to another. They should have been making plans to capitalize on the kind of publicity that money truly can't buy.
Instead, they were muttering about Russia four years from now, and trotting out their commissioner to make vague threats about not allowing NHL players to compete.
TALK ABOUT a buzz kill.
People into hockey - and that includes almost every resident up north - have long dreamed of the day when something glorious lifted their sport from niche status into the mainstream. The gold medal game did that - if just for one fleeting moment - and all of hockey celebrated almost as much as Canada did.
But now it's back to reality. There's a season to finish, some interminable playoffs to endure.
And more griping from owners about how, yes, the Olympics were a nice event, but there's no reason to interrupt a perfectly good NHL season every four years to make sure the best players are in them. Especially if they're in a time zone not conducive to prime time TV and if NHL owners aren't making money on them.
The last part is key, because there's not much any owner won't do if there's a wad of cash involved. Indeed, that's part of the posturing coming from commissioner Gary Bettman, who has to be hearing plenty from his owners on how the league sacrifices everything to accommodate the Olympics and gets almost nothing in return.
Bettman talked during the Olympics about the "destruction" the games do to the league, then issued a statement after the gold medal game making sure everyone knew it was really the NHL's game and the NHL's players who made it so special. Bettman's message was clear: If the Olympics want to keep using NHL players like they have since 1998, it will be on terms far more favorable to the league.
There's not a lot that can be done about the two-week hiatus the NHL has to take, but there could be limits on how many players go from each team and the NHL may push for more control over licensing and the video from the games. Conceivably, there could be a cash payment from the IOC to compensate the league for its trouble.
Russia's star Alex Ovechkin has already made it clear he's playing no matter what, but he's a superstar and superstars can get away with things their teammates can't. If the NHL doesn't get its way, he may be lacing them up with a bunch of junior players.
My guess is all the blustering by the NHL is just posturing before talks with the IOC and before negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement with players. Deep down, even the most hard-nosed owners have to understand that this is all good for hockey.
Then again, these are the same guys who robbed their loyal fans of an entire season of hockey with a lockout that shut down the league, so don't sell them short.
It's not unthinkable to think they would rob hockey fans of their next Olympics.
Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org