Hockey Night in Canada

So the long weekend is winding down. This weekend was a drama filled couple of days, mostly on the fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs were on the verge of making the playoffs. I decided to watch this game even though I'm not the biggest hockey fan. It was a wild one with the home team coming up with the win. Unfortunately the home team will not make the post season due to some last second heroics by the NY Islanders.

I realized while I was watching the game was that, one of the reasons why I don't like hockey is Don Cherry. This guy must be the most ignorant and most uber-Canadian person ever. I know he's not a fan of basketball but I feel like he would be a racist in real life. You're thinking, "those are some bold allegations Tony" (Just remember if you know me, you know I like being controversial for no reason). I remember his whole bias against Europeans saying they were soft and that North American products were better choices. Now people would argue who's better Alexander Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby, and Ovechkin is not a soft player by any means. Back to the actual point, I was saying, he is what is wrong with the sport of hockey. The Don Cherry SportsPlex is in the heart of the ethnic neighbourhood of Brampton, which means he can't be THAT ignorant, can it?

With Canada being such a multi cultural country, why not have a colour commentator who would promote the game itself without bias on the player's ethnic background. Is this to appease the 40 year old baby boomers who desperately want the Leafs to win a cup since the late 60s? The NHL decided to speed up the game, smaller pads to increase the scoring, which did increase interest in the game, but I think the marketing aspect of the league has not reached similar level. I think they need to make the game "cooler", you say "Tony, how do we do this?" I say get rid of Cherry, bring in some young commentators, but obviously this would cause an uproar to the faithful of Hockey night in Canada. Some food for thought, what do you guys think? I think the entire culture of Toronto and Canada is changing to incorporate our multicultural roots. The emergence of the Toronto Raptors and Toronto FC and lets not forget the Jays, all show a natural progression of hockey's market dominance declining. As an indication of this change, Kyle Wellwood and some other Leafs were at the Raptors game, maybe this is a sign of things to come. There are also marketing issues with MLSE on how the handle the Leafs and the Raptors. Remember those old Nike commercials, with Doug Cristie and Alvin Williams playing hockey or some of the leafs playing basketball. I think these need to be reintroduced to bring back some of the coolness factor for both facets of the company. I think I'll blog about that idea later.

In conclusion, my message to the NHL, try to market the game to a different demographic. Get rid of the high collars and plaid suit wearing ancient hockey relic, known as Don Cherry and maybe Hockey can regain some glory and appeal to some of the younger generation. Since I keep my ear to the streets all I hear is "Hockey is wack" or "Hockey is sick gay" from the urban Canadian youth aka my little cousin. How can we change this? or can we?

I'm out.

Peace!