2007 Stanley Cup Champions!!!!!!!!!!

[Pushead2]

YEAH BABY!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOO, THE PARTY DOESN'T STOP!!!!!! ANAHEIM DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[HemiEd]

:ZZZ:

[Reerun_KC]

What did Anaheim do?

What is the Stanely Cup?

[morphius]

What did Anaheim do?

What is the Stanely Cup?
Not knowing what the Stanley Cup is almost grounds for loss of your man card.

[Reerun_KC]

Not knowing what the Stanley Cup is almost grounds for loss of your man card.

ROFL....

I know what it is... Just tidnt know that Hockey was still relevant in America?

[Pushead2]

To me it does!!! first true championship since 1997 with Michigan!! The chiefs are next!!!

[chagrin]

don't forget the michigan hocey team won the College Hockey championship that year as well...or is that what you're referring to?

[Pushead2]

no college football and your right but I haven't follow college hockey alot in my life.

[Sully]

Congrats.
My hockey team is the only team that has given me a championship, and I know how great that feels. Enjoy it.

[Pitt Gorilla]

ROFL....

I know what it is... Just tidnt know that Hockey was still relevant in America?Once again, I don't understand how Americans don't like hockey. It's just about a perfect sport. It has speed, violence, precision, and drama. I suppose a nation full of nancy golf-watchers doesn't feel the need to enjoy such a display.

[morphius]

Once again, I don't understand how Americans don't like hockey. It's just about a perfect sport. It has speed, violence, precision, and drama. I suppose a nation full of nancy golf-watchers doesn't feel the need to enjoy such a display.
It seems most people have trouble following the puck.

[percysnow]

Not knowing what the Stanley Cup is almost grounds for loss of your man card.

what's the penalty for not knowing what sarcasm is?

[percysnow]

hockey is about as poular as womans lacrosse. . .

[Sully]

Reasons why hockey has trouble becoming mainstream:
A) Trouble translating to TV... Hockey isn't like the more popular sports in that it isn't played in little snippets. In football, baseball, and even basketball, you can switch to a game, watch for a few seconds, and get a real feel for the game. Watch a few plays, a few possessions, and you have an idea how a game is going. Hockey cannot replicate this. The action is non-stop, and momentum ebbs and flows constantly. You simply cannot watch a few minutes of a hockey game and get any feel for how the game is going, other than seeing the score.
B) Low "scoring."... I don't fully buy this, but when numbered scoring is low (1-0 or even 4-3) people think it's a boring game. However, the same score hapens in football, it's just that the one point = 7...
C) Trouble following the puck. Though watching the puck is a skill that is learned, watching the puck in a hockey game isn't the be all-end all of the experience. As you watch more hockey you find yourself following the flow of the game, and that will simply lead you to "know" where the puck is, to the point where you don't need to see it at all times. But those inexperienced in watching it can't get into that, understandably.
D) Most of the stars just pop up, rather than grow on American's screens of attention. Due to the fact that many are foreign, and that there is little to no coverage of minor league/ college hockey, few casual fans have ever heard of a guy till he is on the cusp of greatness.
E) Poor media deals. This might be a chicken and egg deal, but when your sport is on a lower tier cable channel, it's simple, not many people will watch. Due to other problems listed above, though, bigger networks are hesitant to sacrifice airtime for an unpopular sport when they can spend half the production costs on a poker tournament and get the same amount or more viewers.



However, hockey is, plain and simple, a great sport. It is speed, violence and strategy in an amount rivaling any of the major sports. It may look more like chaos, and at times it is, but that chaos is, many times, planned. The dump and chase, as ugly as it is, is an integral part of a team's strategy. Play along the boards, as useless as it seems, is a huge part of the toughness of a team.

I wish more people gave it a shot, but on a crowded landscape of sports, it's much easier to dismiss it as irrelevant and switch the channel to something easier to watch than to really give it a chance. The good news is that hockey fans, once roped in, are die-hard hockey fans. This is evidenced by attendance numbers that are equal to or better than the NBA in most years. Hockey fandom just has a feeling of a sort of fraternity of folks who are in on some great secret that everyone else has yet to learn. That's just the feeling.

[Pushead2]

or as popular for chiefs fans to think about the super bowl????? :)

[OnTheWarpath15]

Everyone I know personally has fallen in love with the game after attending a professional game in person.

Television does NOT do the game justice.

The pace of the game is much quicker than it appears in person.

And as sully pointed out, the more you watch, the more you "anticipate" where the puck is or is going to be, and I think it's much easier to follow the puck when you're watching live and in person.