First off, let me say that I love hockey. I never played it competitively but I enjoy skating around with friends in the winter, watching college hockey and occasionally the NHL. I respect it; living in Massachusetts its all around me, its probably only bigger in Minnesota as far as the US goes. Canada still obviously sweats hockey big time, its pretty much all they have. The Raptors and Blue Jays plus the CFL barely count. Anyways, I haven't written anything about the Bruins and I felt like now was as good a time as ever.
Yesterday, the Bruins named Claude Julien as their new head coach. They had a new coach last year-Dave Lewis-who lasted just one season as the Bruins failed to make the playoffs once again. Julien has a good resume although he got dropped by the Devils last season-even though they made the playoffs. Kinda strange. Anyways, I'm not interested in his hiring so much as hockey in Boston and the NHL as a whole. After the lockout of two years ago, the NHL has pretty much been on permanent life support. The fans by and large haven't come back or simply don't care anymore. The NHL is relegated to the Versus network-a backwater station nobody knew. The Stanley Cup playoffs had abysmal ratings and yet nobody talks about hockey being dead. It's like the public has already had the funeral for it and moved on.
It's tough to say how to improve the game without getting too gimmicky or just making it something that its not. The Bruins have been pretty awful the last few seasons and it doesn't help that it traded the franchise's best player two seasons ago-Joe Thornton-to the Sharks where he went on to become the NHL MVP. Think about that. Imagine in Brady or Ortiz was traded in their prime, to a good team and continued to get better. Obviously there's different dynamics in hockey (and those guys would never be traded) but still it is pretty crazy especially considering the bums (Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau) the Bruins got in return for Jumbo Joe. So maybe that was the last straw. Or maybe people realized that the games are so dull in person and even worse on TV. The NHL is in trouble, there's no doubt about that.
Winning cures all, that's a truism in all sports and walks of life really. Hypothetically, even if the Bruins are better-like make the playoffs-but don't make it to the Stanley Cup finals, will the crowds and interest likewise return? I'm not so sure. To paraphrase Rick Pitino during his forgettable stint as Celtics coach, "Bobby Orr, Ray Bourque and Cam Neely aren't walking through that door folks." I hear about the glory days of the 70's when the Bruins were supposedly the most popular team in town. Unfortunately, like most things that I have no recollection of, its hard to picture. I want to see professional hockey be relevant again in Boston but I lose a little more hope every day.
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