Article on struggling NHL in Germany's biggest magazine

arbor

Registered User
Aug 23, 2005
48
0
Germany
Don't know if it's really worth a mention, but Spiegel Online, the online version of Europe's biggest weekly magazine and Germany's most important one, published an article on the NHL, titled "Stepchild NHL: The Forgotten League".

It basically says that hockey is often mentioned as one of the four biggest sports in the USA, but in reality the NHL is trailing behind and losing ground.

Bettman is quoted with an optimistic statement and the columnist acknowledges that the NHL has gotten better since the lockout and does well financially with good attendance numbers. He also likes the potential rivalry between young stars like Crosby and Ovechkin, which - he thinks - could develop into something that we've seen in the 80's NBA with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

His main point is TV, though: Lots of people like to go to hockey games, but Americans don't watch hockey because they don't even know the channel that broadcasts it. In his eyes OLN/Versus is an obscure niche channel and the name change to "Versus" adds confusion to an already bad situation.

Probably nothing new, but it's really rare and kind of surprising to see such a "profound" article on the NHL in Germany's mainstream media. Normally it's rare marginal notes about how Hecht, Sturm, Kölzig etc. did really well in a game and that's it.
 

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