The NHL's in a bad way
I'm watching hockey this morning — USA vs. Sweden — and it occurs to me this might be the first time I've consciously paid attention to it since Herb Brooks was pacing the boards for Team USA. The thing is, Olympic hockey seems to have real electricity and energy, both in the stands and on the ice. Every game seems to matter. A lot.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the NHL is trying to bootstrap itself after a devastating strike. Maybe it's just Chicago, where the Blackhawks appear to be mired in a decade-long pool of suck, but hockey seems to matter little, even to hockey people. It's becoming a participation sport again, isn't it? Plenty of prep kids playing, but adult interest at the pro level seems as low as ever. Baseball managed to come back from its own painful work stoppage in 1994, but its importance to American pop culture was never in doubt. But what about hockey? South of say, 41° north, who really gives a rip?