Some reading for NHL opening day

The NHL opens its season tonight, meaning the race is on to play 82 games to eliminate 14 of 30 teams from the playoffs. Which will end in June.

But league commissioner Gary Bettman opines that he's doing a pretty great job, according to an interesting profile in ESPN magazine. There's even talk the NHL will get a sweet new TV deal that would show games on a channel actually received by most cable viewers.

Of course, one reason that a pair of decent seats at a regular season hockey game may set you back $150 or more is that hockey gets fairly little money from TV. The sport is extremely reliant on gate revenues, the reason that the season is so long and the playoffs are played during some of the loveliest weather of the year.

And remember how exciting the Olympic tournament was in February? Bettman still isn't commiting NHL players to the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia, saying Sochi isn't such a nice place to visit. Yep, that's the best steward the NHL can find for the game. Pathetic.

--S.H.

How can anyone ever watch baseball again after that?

The final score of the Winter Olympics' gold medal hockey game on Sunday may be disappointing to those of us who badly wanted to witness Canada get whooped on their home ice.

Yet, it was such a thrilling game hat it's hard to be too bummed that the Frozen People of the North got the medal they needed to validate their when-will-my-balls-thaw existence.

At least you weren't stuck on the subway in Vancouver yesterday; check out the above video to see how that went.

My observations on the game:

1. There should not even be a discussion over whether the NHL should send its players to the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014. The past week earned more publicity for the sport than the NHL can ever generate on its own with less-than-brilliant marketing techniques such as ice girls and strobe lights.

2. As my friend Scott pointed out in an extremely caffeinated phone call before the third period, did you happen to notice that the game was really exciting despite there being no fighting? Fighting isn't permitted in the international game and I didn't hear one person say they missed it. As I've written before, fighting may be fun sometimes, but it likely turns off more people than it turns on and gives a beautiful sport (which is plenty violent without fighting) a bad image. As long as fighting is allowed and encouraged by the NHL, the NHL will be treated as a minor league sport on par with tractor pulls, pig races and funnel cake eating contests.

3. Which, of course, is a shame. Can anyone who watched today's game imagine sitting in front of a TV for 2 1/2 hours watching a baseball game? Or golf? I think the only sport that comes close on excitement level is pro football and let's face it, today's game was at least 37.3 more times exciting than the Super Bowl -- which featured about 10 minutes of game action and three hours of nut-scratching (albeit nut-scratching in high def!).

4. I'm not so sure that Team Canada is better than Team USA. After two games plus part of an OT period, the U.S. had scored seven goals to Canada's six. The Canadians seemed to have a little more offensive flash throughout the Olympic tournament, but I don't think anyone can argue they were a dominant team. Yes, they slayed Russia. But Russia's goaltender had a mental meltdown that in the old says would have earned him hard time on the Siberian outpost.