Do not tell me that Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby are the second coming. Or the savior. Or the reason you or I should watch the NHL.
Actually, tell me that. Tell me about their rivalry, tell me about how The Kid is the Golden Child and Ovechkin is hated nationwide (the hockey watching nation, at least), tell me about their stats. Tell me how Ovech won't win a Stanley Cup in a city that cares, because most of those cities are in AMERICA.
You'd have to tell me, because I would never know, until Thursday night.
On Thursday night, the two biggest hockey players in the world faced off, and simultaneously, the two best basketball players on the planet faced off. I can NOT GET AWAY from highlights of Kobe vs. Lebron, because they are everywhere. ESPN acted as if it was Goliath vs. Goliath. Fuck David. That game went to the wire and went there well, Lebron eeking out a W and Kobe left ass-kissing while Pau Gasol, my favorite European porn star, collapsed down the stretch and led the Lakers out of Quicken with a deadly start to an 8-game road trip.
Meanwhile, Ovechkin vs. Crosby was a matchup of young budding stars who....ummm...scored goals and uhhhh...passed the puck to their teammates and uhhh...did other hockey-related things.
If you want to watch the NHL, and its not your local team, you either go to Versus, or Center Ice, the Sunday Ticket of the National Hockey League, which I'm pretty sure no one that isn't married to a hockey player, or has a Rob Corddry-Ed Monix obsession with either player (10 points for that Semi-Pro reference, you're welcome), has purchased this decade, or last decade, or since its inception.
Well I don't have that unhealthy obsession, so I don't have Center Ice. And neither the Pens nor the Caps are my local six, so I was not able to see that game. I had the Bruins tonight, and the Association managed to get their marquee players on a decent, nationally available cable network for the masses to witness. However, when I, as anyone with a FUCKING BRAIN would, assumed that the National Hockey League would get Washington vs. Pittsburgh onto Versus for the said masses to see, I clicked over and was faced with Tin Fucking Cup.
Tin Cup is a passable sports movie. At THE VERY LEAST, I legitimately feel that Don Johnson and Kevin Costner are golfers DURING THE GOLF SCENES. Rene Russo doesn't look THAT terrible. Cheech is Cheech, which is a win-win, ninety percent of the time. I enjoy the movie.
It's fifteen goddamn years old. You have the BEST matchup in hockey TODAY, with two teams, who as their records state, really are not that bad at all. Center stage, you have it on Versus. You are NOT going to beat TNT's ratings, even if that game IS on television. And that's fine. I don't even watch hockey! And that's fine. I don't watch golf, but I watch the Masters, and I don't watch tennis, but I wake up EARLY AS SHIT to watch Wimbledon. After all the hype, all the press behind these two undoubtedly talented athletes, best at what they do in the WORLD, the NHL could not SOMEHOW get Versus to show that game instead a movie that is sports related. It's not Raging fucking Bull, it's not Rocky or Rudy, it's not Hoosiers, and hell, it's not even Varsity Blues, and its barely even Summer Catch. It's Tin Cup. A movie that was on TNT once a week for about 9 years, and a movie that no one will say they were proud to watch on a Thursday night when two eventual legends faced off.
The NHL blew a MAJOR chance tonight. Get off the Winter Classic high. That is ONE GAME A YEAR that everyone sees, your playoffs are still on minor cable networks, and no one that isn't from the city that wins cares that anyone wins the Cup. Boston wouldn't even set off fireworks if the Bruins won. But a chick GOT KILLED when the Sox won A LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES in 2004. Someone was RUN OVER WITH A CAR when the Pats won their first of three Super Bowls, and I DAMN sure saw fireworks and broken windows when the C's won their title two summers ago. I'm from Philly and we will light shit on fire for almost anything. We boo Santa Claus. Unless he's at an NHL All-Star Game, because that shit will be on Fine Living Network, and no one will see it because it will be pre-empted by Emeril Live reruns.
NHL. Get your shit together. Now. I kinda like hockey. Kinda. But I kinda know a lot of people who kinda don't give a shit, and you're kinda giving them a million reasons to kinda not watch. The way you're heading, the "four major sports" idiom will be quickly changed to include basketball, baseball, football, and The Bachelor: Tiger Woods' New Nanny Edition. And I would have loved to click between Cavs/Lakers and Pens/Caps tonight. I would love to watch hockey...but hockey...you're making it impossible.
