December 27, 2022 by Josh Boulton

I want to be an ambassador for the National Hockey League. I really do. I want people to love hockey, and the NHL has the best players so in theory it should be the best league and the easiest sell. But if the NHL is Rod Tidwell, I stand here before them screaming the illustrious words of Jerry Maguire: “help me help you!”

Is there a major sports league anywhere else that shoots itself in the foot more often?

Let’s start with the interest generated by rivalries. If you had to pick a “biggest rival” for your favourite team, could you do it? Is there that one must see matchup? I imagine it’s a hard question for fans of any team these days. I can only think of one or two games per season I look forward to specifically because of a particular match up, and I watch hockey in my sleep. Imagine how unconvincing it is for new fans to get into when there’s really nothing to anticipate. If you were trying to talk a friend into watching a game with you and saying “here’s my case for why hockey is the best”, how many options do you really have? Not enough is the easy answer. 

As an Edmonton Oilers fan at least my team is one of the ones I can truly say still has an obvious rivalry, with provincial nemesis the Calgary Flames. But can it really be that engaging when they only play each other three times this season total? And two of those games were in the first month of the season, before anyone was really even in hockey mode. Before we even had a chance to get into the 2022-23 editions of our respective teams. The final installment being on December 27th is a travesty to the sport, and to the NHL. How do they not want to capitalize on the buzz from last year’s playoff series by stoking the emotions between the clubs throughout this year? One of the only true bitter season series in existence is over before the most meaningful part of the season begins. 

But the good news is it wouldn’t matter anyway, since half the games would probably be either inaccessible to viewers via limited streaming options, or simply blacked out completely. For example, starting with this season, the NHL doesn’t even let Canadians watch through its own app anymore. In Canada we’ve been forced to switch from NHL Live to Sportsnet Now. As a subscriber of the SN Now Premium package, I’ve never been more disappointed in any viewing experience. There’s significantly less features, less access to stats, and the games disappear after a few weeks. That is if the games are even watchable without showing “playback error” or jumping ahead to live revealing the score even when you want to watch from the start.

And I still have to keep the NHL app anyway to get all the in-depth stats and detailed game info I want. What fan with only a general interest or just starting out would bother with that? None that I know. That’s a hard way to retain the already passionate fans, let alone helping us convince new fans to jump on board when that’s their experience. How can we sell that?

Now let’s just say we’re still able to get a new fan in front of the screen. What do they finally get treated to? Ridiculously inconsistent officiating, 10 minute long reviews involving complicated rules that don’t make sense, a slew of gambling advertisements, and already difficult to follow players and pucks disappearing from play into virtual board ads. 

Now, imagine despite all this working against us, the effort pays off and a new fan is hollering YES! MORE OF THIS!! I’d have to answer ok, but you’ll have to wait 18 minutes and 42 seconds to watch again (pro tip: that’s how long ahead between periods you generally need to skip ahead between periods when watching on the app). And they’d say “why do I have to wait 18 minutes and 42 seconds to see more hockey when there’s nine games on the schedule being played right now???” And I’d have no choice but to break the news: “because all nine games started at the exact same time, so they also all go to intermission at the exact same time. Nine games will start back up again simultaneously in 18 minutes and 14 seconds. Do the math. Approximately 28 seconds will have passed. Thats how much time it takes for a new fan to go from “let’s do this hockey!” to “what else is on?” 

Help me, NHL. Help me, help you.