Is Olympic participation a priority to help get fans back next year?

[Jazz]

Are any of you here thinking ahead to 1 year from now when the Torino Olympics will be underway in the context of NHL-fan relations?

How much do you think Olympic participation help get hockey into the limelight (on both sides of the border) and help get fans back?

I am thinking that however long it takes for this mess to get settled, both sides (ok, the PA wants to take part in the Olympics, so I mean the owners) must agree to take part - even if the season starts late next year. In the Winter Olympics, Hockey will (with Figure skating) be the premiere sports.

We all know that Baseball took about 10 years to recover from the strike-shortened 1994 season, but the Olympics might help hockey accelerate it's recovery in North America.

That plus it is high time that Europe hosts an elite-level tournament.

Please let's not get into the amatuer/pro Olympic debate - that is for another thread....

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[RangerBoy]

Are any of you here thinking ahead to 1 year from now when the Torino Olympics will be underway in the context of NHL-fan relations?

How much do you think Olympic participation help get hockey into the limelight (on both sides of the border) and help get fans back?

I am thinking that however long it takes for this mess to get settled, both sides (ok, the PA wants to take part in the Olympics, so I mean the owners) must agree to take part - even if the season starts late next year. In the Winter Olympics, Hockey will (with Figure skating) be the premiere sports.

We all know that Baseball took about 10 years to recover from the strike-shortened 1994 season, but the Olympics might help hockey accelerate it's recovery in North America.

That plus it is high time that Europe hosts an elite-level tournament.

Please let's not get into the amatuer/pro Olympic debate - that is for another thread....

You're kidding?You must be kidding.Sorry my friend but Olympic Hockey does not fly in the States.Especially with a 6 hour time change from the Eastern time zone and a 9 hour change from the West.That's the plan,shut down the NHL for another three weeks to play in the Olympics.A bigger waste of time than the World Cup

 

[ScottyBowman]

The only people that care about olympic hockey are nationalistic Canadians.

 

[KeyserSoze]

Olympics...?

Sorry, but the Olympics are barely a blip on the radar screen in the US. I'll venture to guess that half of our population don't watch or care about the Olympics. IMO, this makes little or no difference to the ongoing lockout...

 

[Injektilo]

Olympic hockey is much much better than NHL hockey. It's the best players playing for something other than $$, it's the playoffs condensed into two weeks with national pride on the line. Who wants to watch phoenix at florida when you can watch Canada-Russia?

If the lockout disillusions people to the NHL because they just see it as greedy players looking for money, well the Olympics are a good start to fixing that. International hockey is when salaries don't matter, holdouts don't matter, and the players aren't just mercenaries going for where the money is.

 

[McDonald19]

Olympic hockey is much much better than NHL hockey. It's the best players playing for something other than $$, it's the playoffs condensed into two weeks with national pride on the line. Who wants to watch phoenix at florida when you can watch Canada-Russia?

Sorry but no one in the U.S. is going to care about Olympic Hockey, especially with the time difference. People here barely cared when it was in Salt Lake City.

 

[HckyFght*]

Sorry but no one in the U.S. is going to care about Olympic Hockey, especially with the time difference. People here barely cared when it was in Salt Lake City.

True, the NHL in the Olympics is a nonstarter down here. The league should simply help promote watching the winter games, use their stars to sell the games on TV but not actually participate. It screws up the season, puts star players at risk, and no, the hockey isn't better, not by a long shot.

-HckyFght!

 

[Injektilo]

Sorry but no one in the U.S. is going to care about Olympic Hockey, especially with the time difference. People here barely cared when it was in Salt Lake City.

well that's not my problem now is it? Seriously, if people in certain parts of the US don't care about hockey, then that's their loss isn't it? They're the ones missing out on the greatest sport on the planet.


The US might not care about Olympic hockey, but the rest of the world does.

 

[Injektilo]

True, the NHL in the Olympics is a nonstarter down here. The league should simply help promote watching the winter games, use their stars to sell the games on TV but not actually participate. It screws up the season, puts star players at risk, and no, the hockey isn't better, not by a long shot.

-HckyFght!

How does the NHL go about promoting the Olympics and use their stars to sell the Olympics without actually participating in the games?

And yeah, the hockey is much better in the Olympics. It's the best players in the world on only 8 teams, on international ice surfaces. Right there the quality of play is going to be better.. Unless you're talking Belarus Vs Germany, which does happen.
But then when you add the sheer tension that each game has, the fact that each game matters to a whole country and not just a city...

The tension is why I watch hockey. It's why the all-star games are fun to watch, but not really interesting to watch, there's nothing on the line. It's why playoff hockey is 1000X better than regular season hockey, because the games actually matter.

And if the star players really felt there was a risk.... well, no one's making them go. They're going to play because they love the honour of playing for their country.

 

[ScottyBowman]

well that's not my problem now is it? Seriously, if people in certain parts of the US don't care about hockey, then that's their loss isn't it? They're the ones missing out on the greatest sport on the planet.


The US might not care about Olympic hockey, but the rest of the world does.

Don't want to hurt your feelings but besides a few northern European nations, nobody cares.

 

[Injektilo]

Don't want to hurt your feelings but besides a few northern European nations, nobody cares.

ok, so i should have said "the rest of the hockey world". And when it comes to hockey, we should probably only give a **** what the hockey world thinks, no?

and those "few northern european nations" and Canada constitute the majority of the hockey world. Seeing as those places are the ones that care about olympic hockey, then the vast majority of the hockey world cares about olympic hockey and would probably like to see the best players play.

 

[DownFromNJ]

Sorry my friend but Olympic Hockey does not fly in the States.

The highest rated game in the Winter Olympics is by far hockey. By far.

38 million people watching the gold medal game in 2002 is better than Red Sox/Yankees Game 7 by 10 million.

 

[dolfanar]

The highest rated game in the Winter Olympics is by far hockey. By far.

38 million people watching the gold medal game in 2002 is better than Red Sox/Yankees Game 7 by 10 million.

And better than the Stanley Cup Final by atleast 30 million...