HOCKEY: Two items in Sunday's N.Y. TIMES addressed the
state of the NHL. Hockey writer Joe Lapointe called on the
league to shorten its season and "stop stretching out the
playoffs over nine weeks to tickle the fickle flirtation
with American television networks like Fox. Horrendous
camera work, longer television timeouts and nine-month
seasons are not going to attract new fans but they do irk
current ones." Lapointe: "It's time to call a timeout on
all the shuck and jive and think about the game!" (N.Y.
TIMES, 6/14). Former NHL Dir of Broadcasting and current
consultant Stu Hackel contributed an op-ed under the header,
"Cool Fads Causing Meltdown In N.H.L." Hackel: "[I]t is
hard to imagine any business growing by alienating or
insulting its existing customers. Rather than taking their
loyalty for granted or, worse, abusing and perverting it, it
would make more sense for the N.H.L. to discover why its
fans are so loyal, nurture it and bring more of that -- and
not swinging sticks, dancing robots and blue-tailed pucks --
to a larger audience" (N.Y. TIMES, 6/14).
AFL: On "Dateline," NBC's Bob McKeown reported on the
AFL, calling it "so fan friendly it does things the NFL
won't." Commissioner David Baker, on what separates the
leagues: "Balls go into the stands -- we may lose 15 to 20
balls a ballgame, but fans get to keep them. Players get
knocked into the stands -- you don't get to keep the
players. You've got to throw them back." McKeown said that
the average AFL player salary is $16,000 ("Dateline," 6/12).
