The NHL Rests on Crosby

Since the NHL Lockout 4 years ago the sport has lost many fans and even more media coverage. Hockey used to have a weekly game on ESPN and ABC and a nightly 30-minute NHL recap show. Now the sport is stuck on Versus, formerly the Outdoor Life Network most famous for televising the Tour De France, and weekend games on NBC where they cut off coverage in the middle of Overtime in the Playoffs for horse racing pre-race. Since the return of the NHL the Stanley Cup Finals have featured teams from Canada in each year. While that’s nice for Canada and the coverage there, it did nothing in America where the opposing teams were all located on the coast. Tampa Bay, Carolina, and Anaheim weren’t considered “hockey locations”. As a Carolinian and a fan of the Hurricanes since the team moved to North Carolina and a hockey fan for even longer, I took offense to that comment. Then again, in the media, if it didn’t come from Boston or New York then it’s not really important. Things are different this year though. The Western Conference is represented by the Detroit Red Wings, an Original Six team with a city aptly named “Hockeytown” while the Eastern Conference is represented by the Pittsburgh Penguins, a storied franchise in the early 1990’s led by Mario Lemieux is now a storied franchise in the late 2000’s led by Sidney Crosby. It’s the best possible match-up for the NHL to bring back old fans and perhaps bring in new ones.

The pressure in this series is all on a Kid named Sid. From the moment he broke into the NHL he was dubbed “The Next Gretzky”. He finally reached the playoffs last season with the Penguins but his adventure was short as the team lost in five games to the eventual Conference Champion Ottawa Senators. Having to learn how to win by losing, the Penguins finished this season in 2nd place in the East and made a huge trade deadline acquisition in Marian Hossa, showing the commitment to win now. Along with Hossa, Crosby is flanked with young superstars like Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, Marc-Andre Fluery, and Ryan Malone and veterans like Petr Sykora, Gary Roberts, and Sergi Gonchar. None of those players seem to matter though. The NHL has pushed Sidney Crosby as the face of the league since his rookie year. He, along with Alex Ovechkin, were supposed to bring the league back to prosperity. So far that hasn’t happened. Ratings and attendance has been steadily increasing season by season since the lockout but it’s still well below what it once was. Crosby and Ovechkin had a chance to help the league together but Ovechkin’s Capitals were unable to defeat the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round of this years playoffs. The cards didn’t fall the leagues way in that situation but Crosby has now kept the leagues hope alive.

Crosby is a lot like LeBron James, the NBA savior. He broke in the league with high expectations and although he met him in his rookie year, his bid for the Calder Trophy (Rookie of the Year) was stopped by Ovechkin, much like James’ bid was stopped by Carmelo Anthony. The first year James made the playoffs, his team lost to the eventual Conference champions. The following year, his team made the finals and saved the league from the equivalent of NHL’s coastal battle but instead of “two teams that aren’t hockey cities” the NBA’s battle consisted of “two teams that play boring basketball”. James’ team was swept by the more experienced San Antonio Spurs, Crosby’s fate is still undecided.

Sidney Crosby may be the greatest player since Wayne Gretzky. His combination of skill and smarts captivated crowds and cities. Gretzky was able to take a suffering league, put it on his back, and carry it to what you saw before the lock out. Crosby certainly has the marketing behind him to do that but can he deliver on the NHL’s grandest stage? The Penguins don’t have to win this series for it to be considered a success for the NHL. Sidney Crosby just has to deliver.