Letter to ESPN about USA HOCKEY

Just wrote the following to John Buccigross, the only man in America still covering hockey. I wrote him a while back about Bobby Orr and he printed little more than the title. I was happy for the press, but mad my message was lost. Anway, I wrote back today because he suggested that the NHL needed to spend millions developing the game at the grass roots level in the US. FUCK THAT!

Anyway, here is what I wrote, just incase he doesn't pick me out of the 10 million emails he gets a week.

+++++++++++++++++++

John,

Love your articles, and while I only support a few of your opinions, I genuinely appreciate the fact that you love and support the game South of the border. That said, I wonder how you can say things like:

“The NHL needs to make a league wide and countrywide commitment with USA Hockey that will get more kids to play the sport….This will take millions of dollars and years of attention, but it must be done.”

Why should Canadian teams or Canadian fans for that matter support such a policy, when the league has done everything possible to A) take the game away from Canada and B) change the rules the country loved to make the game more attractive to a country that is making it very clear it does not want the game (at a national level). Couple attendance figures in 5 very easy to identify American rinks with your recent illustration of some hockey television ratings in the US and you have all the evidence you will need to prove that the US does not have room for another National league. (Off topic: How does New Jersey not support the Devils? Who has done more for their fans in the last ten years and gotten less in return?)

You say a financial commitment is needed to build USA hockey when this league, not 15 years ago, refused financial support to existing franchises/cities while at the same time threw money at non-traditional and FAILED hockey markets in the US. Should expansion to ridiculous American markets not count as a league wide commitment to build the game in the US? By the same token, should that effort not be deemed largely a failure? Given that, why would anyone support spending more money building the game in the US?

Winnipeg and Quebec City needed new buildings, would it not have been simpler to give them league sponsored loans rather than rip a team away from supportive cities? After robbing a country of two teams and the league of one of its great show piece rivalries (Montreal & Quebec), the NHL then made a point to prop up and support awful American franchises at the expense of the game itself. The NHL made a point of sinking Canadian teams over something as simple as a $50 million loan, right after it had its bank accounts filled through expansion.

I appreciate your desire to see the game grow and develop in the US, but I hope your motives are based on more than simple patriotism because Canadian fans have suffered a long time without 1/100th the support and commitment the league has shown teams like Florida, Tampa Bay, Phoenix, Nashville, Carolina and now and most alarmingly Pittsburgh. I have read your pieces about Pittsburgh and your support of the area keeping a team, but do they honestly deserve the team more than Winnipeg or Quebec did 10 years ago? I know you cannot in good conscience say yes to that, so I ask again why should the league waste more money on building the game in the US when there are 4 cities in Canada that need, deserve and want a team?

Speculating on National TV revenue is no way to run a league. Instead of putting more money after bad in the US, it is time to show Canada some support and attention.