You’ve probably already heard about Tiger Woods’ dismissal of hockey as something nobody watches anymore. The NHL’s tepid response didn’t please ESPN columnist DJ Gallo, who composed the letter the NHL should have sent, if they’d had the brass (and the sense of humor).
An excerpt is below; click here for the full letter.
We [won] the 18-49 demographic last Saturday night for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. No, it’s not that coveted 75-plus demo that golf dominates, but we hope the fact that most of our viewers weren’t napping will help our cause. Enjoy the Greatest Generation, though! Perhaps the two of you can commiserate about your balky knees or discuss your love of Buicks.
12 Comments
It had to be said. Or at least made light of. Well done, and from someone on the ESPN staff as well, WoW.
And then there’s this guy
http://www.travelgolf.com/blogs/chris.baldwin/2008/06/03/hockey_fans_flex_their_pathetically_low_
Just like the old commercial says:
Golf would be better… if it was hockey.
@Sombrero Guy
That guy looks like a tool.
Wow after reading that ESPN NHL response…..i don’t think i’ve ever been more proud to be a hockey player, and a hockey fan. SUCK IT TIGER!
While I think Tiger’s comment was a bit idiotic, especially for someone who is always careful about what he says, the statements pretty much represents the state of the game in the public eye as a whole.
When I went to SI site off of CNN, what do you think the image and headline was on the front? It wasn’t from the game last night. It was from an NBA game. On the right hand side under “Top Stories”, it was 3rd down from the top. The media and the general populace don’t care about hockey, which is sad.
Until someone really starts getting serious about getting the NHL in people’s livings rooms and out of a cult-like status, comments like Tiger’s are going to be the norm. When you have ESPN telling the NHL to take a hike because poker re-runs give them more viewers, something is wrong with the ties in the NHL corporate offices.
Now I’m annoyed that we’ve all essentially doubled the traffic to this guy’s little travelgolf blog.
Oh, there is just so much wrong with the golf idiot’s column. Where to begin? With the fact that I have all my teeth? That I don’t watch “Two and a Half Men”? That I am most certainly not dumber than a box of rocks? I’m not Canadian? That I didn’t write this nightmare of the sentence?:
“Yes, hockey had a good ratings number (for it, David Stern would lock himself in a room and fire two dozen interns if his finals every drew just a 4.3) off last night?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s endless Game 5.” (Right, who’s dumber than a box of rocks now? Call me once you get a competent proofreader!)
Didn’t hockey just have a championship or something? I’ve been too busy watching the WNBA on ABC – it’s fannnntastic!
Unfortunately, I think Nadir is right. Far be it from me to flog a poor old deceased horse which I have flogged many times before, but lets say it once again, but…very few people in the United States outside of a few core markets cares about hockey.
It is a distant fourth (or lower) in most US media markets, and hasn’t moved out of that spot in spite of years and years of expansion, marketing, glowing pucks, and other crap and nonsense like that. Hockey still gets outdrawn by baseball, basketball, football, NASCAR, and in some cases Arena-football. Boo-yah.
So, as much of a hockey fan as I am, and as much of an obnoxious brat as I think Tiger is, he’s not wrong.
I should also point out the irony that ESPN blasted away at Tiger for dissing hockey, when ESPN itself doesn’t even carry hockey anymore. (They carried the World Rock-Paper-Scissors Championships, though. I repeat: Boo-yah.)
AHAHAHAH nice
screw you tiger
ThunderWeenie,
Comparing hockey to football or NASCAR isn’t fair given the incredibly different nature of their schedules. I mean NASCAR is once a week and everyone races…now if you were to have the NHL play only once a week and pool together the ratings/attendances from all the games and then compare them to NASCAR, that’d be different.
I think hockey is getting on just fine in most of the Southern markets and one of the big indicators of that is how much more prevalent youth and high school hockey is in places like Phoenix, Dallas and Atlanta compared with where it was 10 years ago. Kids are growing up playing the game and are being exposed it even if they’re not playing – these kids are more likely to become hockey fans as adults, thus boosting the attendance/ratings.
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