By Jeremy Brunner

NHL Playoffs - Come on, get into it

I never was a huge hockey fan back in the day. Its one of those sports that is no good on t.v. No, I'm not one of those dorks who can't follow the puck, or understand what is going on. I just don't care. And if you'll look at the t.v. ratings, you'll find that I am not alone. Game one of the Stanley Cup Finals last year on OLN drew just 611,000 households. By comparison, a women's college softball game on the same night on ESPN2 had more viewers. Or how about another cable channel that not everybody has, Spike TV. The debut of their Ultimate Fighting reality show drew about twice the viewers of that NHL game one. The Stanley Cup Finals hold such little interest that the local NBC affiliate(you know, the 3-letter station) ran a tape-delayed Real Salt Lake game instead of the NHL's title round. Now ignoring my feelings on tape delays(never ever, under any circumstances), this just shows how far the NHL has fallen.

Not to say that popular is the same as good. There are millions of folks who have bought an Avril Lavigne album, but I'm not throwing her on my cd wall right before John Lennon. But if you're going to watch hockey, get a ticket.

My biggest problem with the NHL is the same problem I still have with baseball. When you have labor issues(strike/lockout), never, ever cancel your championship series. It wasn't cool when MLB did it in 1994, and it was awful when hockey lost its entire season in 2004-5. I understand and/or sympathize with labor relations. I know they are important. But if you are in a sport where the minimum wage is greater than six figures, under no circumstance is it okay to lose the World Series. I am just now easing into the healing process with baseball, hockey you are at least ten years away.

One more stat to add to the mix. While that Stanley Cup game drew just over 600,000 households(out of approximately 100 million U.S. households), the Utah Fiesta Bowl(as viewed right here on ABC4) received almost 400,000 houses, in the Salt Lake City market alone(approximately 850,000 households).

Could AK be right?

Andrei Kirilenko certainly didn't endear himself to most Utah fans, when he challenged Coach Jerry Sloan to play him more minutes. AK has certainly been a dissapointment this season, but perhaps he has a point when he complains about playing time. Kirilenko could score 16 points a game when he played 30+ minutes per. But this year, in a reduced role with reduced minutes, he barely scored half of that. Its tough to get in a flow offensively when you keep getting yanked. So should AK play more? Who knows? But he has to do more than his 0-point outburst in game two if the Jazz are to have a chance against Houston.

Agree/Disagree? Post below