Few people (in this country) really, truly care about the fate of the NHL. I am one of them. I became a fan over 10 years ago and have continued to hang in there when the popularity of the sport plummeted to the point where ESPN dropped its coverage of the sport in lieu of NASCAR coverage. There was once a hockey show competitive with Baseball Tonight, NBA Countdown, and NFL Live. In fact, NHL 2 Night is where John Buccigross made his ESPN debut.

The NHL is now only mentioned on Around the Horn as a joke that Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News, is a hockey fan.  Cowlishaw’s lack of ability to be entertaining instead pushes the joke on him, in that he will once again be beat out by the always exciting Woody Paige, again.

Although improving two years removed from a bitter lockout that not many people noticed, the sport still has its work cut out in order to even regain its mid-90s form as merely being recognized as the fourth major professional sport. These days I hear “experts” talk about athletes and try and compare them to other sports, but they only say “…and it’s the same in baseball, football, or basketball,” but never hockey. Until recently, SportsCenter only mentioned hockey in a negative light, like examining the brutality that causes suspensions.

We have now resorted to making metaphors of the usual characters at a frat party to explain the character of the teams competing in this year’s playoffs.

I wanted to further attack ESPN’s attempt to douse the sport of any integrity but realized that someone did that already. It’s sad really because although ESPN is definitely to blame in part for the initial downfall of the sport, the way to revitalize the coolest sport on ice is to get new fans. NHL fans have widely been awarded the title of “most loyal” (see? even when ESPN covers hockey its still got to be about fighting). But perhaps the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” can redeem itself by bringing the sport back on its airwaves.

Of course, a large portion of the blame must lie with commissioner Gary Bettman who has evidently made it his duty to kill the league with ridiculous expansion and clearly dividing the league from its players during the lockout. And although he really didn’t have much of a choice, Bettman signed the NHL’s life away to a cable deal with Versus. Although the coverage from Versus has been reasonable and not insulted the intelligence of a hockey fan like NBC, the cable network is still unavailable in a lot of places (like my apartment building, which decided in its infinite wisdom to sign a contract with HotWire Communications).

It looks as though my favorite sport will have to continue to struggle for at least a little while longer. We need more new fans (which could be generated if ESPN would decide to put favorable NHL programming on their station), fewer teams in areas that don’t care about hockey (I’m looking at you Florida Panthers), and perhaps a shorter season to build up the excitement of the Stanley Cup playoffs, one of the most exciting playoffs in all of sports. I would move to Canada to suppress all my hockey problems, but even people in Toronto don’t want to be Toronto Maple Leafs fans. So for now, we wait.