Every once in a while, I’m reminded of just how far we’ve come as a society. Indeed, the Canadian media alone provides us with significant advances in the field of humor on a daily basis; the Toronto Star is doing more than its share in this area. Exhibit one: Damien Cox’s writeup of last night’s Leafs loss to the Sharks, in which he focused not on the failure, but on the Leafs’ “gritty demeanour and appearance of pride.” I’ve heard of accentuating the positive, but this is ridiculous. Exhibit two: Rick Westhead’s recent column in the Star, which shows us that one doesn’t have to actually know anything about a city in order to make judgments about it.
The fact is, the NHL would have been far better off had Ovechkin been allowed to bolt Washington as a restricted free agent this summer to join an NHL team in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, or New York — cities where Ovechkin’s talents would have been better used to help raise the NHL’s profile.
Apparently Westhead feels so strongly about New York that he mentions it twice! Incidentally, for someone who keeps mentioning “facts” throughout the article, he doesn’t use many. This particular excerpt is obviously an opinion as opposed to fact, but that’s beside the point.
Does anyone else really think that the NHL needs its profile raised in New York or Philadelphia? Philadelphia ranks 4th in the NHL in attendance, whereas the Rangers rank 11th (the Islanders are 30th, but hey, that’s mostly the Nassau Coliseum’s fault). Wouldn’t a city closer to the bottom of that attendance list need Ovechkin more in their town to “help raise the NHL’s profile”- say, Washington at #29? That would be too logical, if one were to use Westhead’s reasoning.
In what was an already-crowded marketplace, the Capitals now have to compete for dollars from both prospective sponsors and fans against baseball’s Washington Nationals and Tiger Woods’ new invitational golf tournament, said Chris Hudgins, a Washington-area sports marketing official and former Capitals executive.
Here’s a mind-bogglingly bad argument, seeing as how the Nationals’ and Capitals’ seasons don’t impact each other at all (the Nats are away on Caps’ home game days during the first week of April), and Tiger Woods’ invitational is held in the summer. A better comparison would be with the Wizards, D.C. United, or Redskins, but it would apparently be too much to ask this guy to do some actual research instead of surfing the Post website or talking to one person in Washington for his opinion. Westhead’s confused ramblings continue:
Ovechkin may well help to sell more of the Capitals’ safety-cone-coloured sweaters. But it’s doubtful he’ll help spur the NHL’s popularity across the U.S.
“Safety-cone-coloured sweaters?” Huh?
Despite Westhead’s best efforts, there’s just no way to compare hockey in Canada with hockey in Washington. No one would ever claim that hockey is a priority here since D.C. is a football town, but the Caps are not the unmitigated disaster that Westhead seems to think they are. It’s an understatement to say that the Washington media isn’t as focused on hockey as the Toronto media, but at least they wouldn’t attempt to sugarcoat a bad situation by writing pathetic articles about the Caps’ “gritty demeanour and appearance of pride” in a loss. (They save that for the Redskins.) The media in D.C. would also likely research a topic before making unfounded judgments about a city they’ve likely never visited. Isn’t that one of the basics of responsible journalism?
12 Comments
You can take it one step further, Toronto sports media only follow issues which impact Toronto Teams. It was interesting that during our trip back home at Christmas, most Non-Crosby related hockey stories were about the Leafs. All of the national hockey broadcasts on TSN and CBC were Leafs games. You could only see another Canadian team if you could get the regional broadcasts on satellite or digital.
DC Sports Chick,
Let all the Sour Grapers, vent. I’m too busy watchin’ Ovie play. It just goes to show how important they feel Ovie is to the NHL but just can’t get over the fact that Ovechkin and Crosby are in the US! Hah! The captains of Van, Ott, and Tor, are Swedes and Mon is Finnish. It just reeeekks of nationalistic jealousy. LOL.
You’re right, Bernie- but it’s the laziness of the jealousy that irritates me more than the jealousy itself
NS2NOVA- all Leafs, all the time would be extremely depressing.
As a lifelong Canadiens fan who grew up in North Jersey (long story), I have to laugh at Westhead’s arguments. Maybe Ovie could have gone to a REAL hockey market, maybe like, um, I dunno… Quebec?!? BWAHAHAHAH!!!
Why does a city like Toronto need a player like Alex? They constantly put up a pitiful product on the ice and they sell out every night. For the viability of the NHL you need to promote the smaller markets.
I think Toronto wants to give McCabe’s “A” to Ovie.
Great article. (by you, not him)
Toronto Maple “Laughs”! is appropriate. They should have let Scotty Bowman come in on “his” terms to begin the rebuilding process in the summer. They should move Sundin now to get some valuable prospects into their system.
In Canada, safety cones are red, not orange.
Ok, I made that up.
Also, Damien Cox is actually color blind.
Ok, I made that up too.
Is there a Franco-Canadian word for “putz”?
“Is there a Franco-Canadian word for “putzâ€??”
Putz in any language is Damien Cox.
I think what the writers are saying is that it would help the league publicity wise to have Ovie in a bigger market than Washington.
Now of course with Ovechkin staying in Washington, numbers wise it will help the smaller market team Ovie is playing for more so than the NHL.
-Check out my hockey blog at: thepowerplay.blogspot.com
Putting one of the marquee players in the league in New York, or wherever, could in theory be a big boon for the NHL, but I’m not so sure Jaromir Jagr has had that effect.
That said, it is rather unfortunate that Ovechkin’s record deal wasn’t front page news the next day. That’s the kind of impact you’d hope having a megastar would create.
And Cox has been harder on the Leafs than anyone in any city. Heck, they get hammered by everyone, ad infinitum, so there’s no sugarcoating here.
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