Michigan loves its hockey, even when it’s not ‘cool’

By Andrew Mell
Western Herald

It never occurred to me that Michigan was weird until seeing a McDonald’s commercial earlier this year. Apparently in this state we really like hockey, and oddly enough, apparently elsewhere in the United States it’s just not that big of a deal.

When you really stop to think about it, hockey is pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread across our great state. Obviously it’s passionately followed here at Western Michigan University with the Broncos competing against the likes of Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State. The Lawson Lunatics take no prisoners as our arena truly gives the team a home ice advantage.

Off of campus the passion for hockey isn’t deluded one bit. Anyone can tell exactly when the NHL playoffs begins by all of the Red Wings flags flying out of the side windows of passing cars. Even
when the Tigers were in the World Series, and the Pistons winning the NBA championship a few years back, they didn’t command nearly the same level of visible support that the Red Wings do perennially.

So yes, hockey is a big deal in Michigan. Perhaps it’s because of our proximity to Canada, or perhaps because we can count on the Red Wings to be championship contenders every season.

Why hockey hasn’t caught on in the U.S. is baffling, what is it missing that the other sports have? Like football, it’s fast paced with plenty of hitting, but unlike football they don’t have 30 second periods of inactivity between every play.

Like basketball, hockey has constant ball (or puck) movement, but instead of just running, hockey players streak up and down the ice much faster. Like baseball the lack of facemasks allows fans to see the players, their expressions, their intensity. But unlike baseball, hockey isn’t American; could that simply be the problem?

Hockey really doesn’t lack anything that the other sports provide except for the fact that it isn’t an American sport. Can a country so fond of Toyota’s and Honda’s really have so much patriotism that we’d largely ignore a sport just because it is a product of our neighbors to the north?

As dense as this might sound it could be the case, a parallel example being how we basically ignore soccer, the clear-cut most popular sport in the world.

Another thing hockey has going against it is the lack of availability and practicality it offers to our youth. Most high schools don’t have hockey programs, and only some cities have ice rinks with recreational teams. How can we, as a country, identify with a sport that many of us never have a reasonable opportunity to play?

Football players wear just as much specialized padding and equipment as is required in hockey and the maintenance of a 100-yard pristine field can’t be all that much cheaper than maintaining an
ice rink.

It’s difficult to come up with an exact reason, or reasons, why hockey is only the fourth most popular sport in the U.S., well behind the NFL, NBA, and MLB; it’s possible that NASCAR even has a larger following, the numbers may be closer than you’d think.

Regardless of the popularity of hockey around the country, at least all of us in Michigan have got it right. We know how great hockey is and how much fun it is to play and watch. And of course, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have one of the best teams in the NHL every year.

So even though it may not be the cool thing to do, keep watching hockey because sometimes going against the flow is the only way to go.

Andrew Mell, a Western Herald opinion columnist, is a senior majoring in aviation, and can be reached via e-mail at melltimejr@hotmail.com.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=6161

Posted by HeraldAdmin on May 31 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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