May 23, 2006

ARE CANADIANS SO NARROW THAT THEY CAN ONLY FOLLOW HOCKEY?

      Before I start ranting let me say I fully understand that in Canada hockey is the most popular sport.  I also understand that the front pages of newspapers and the lead items on sports highlight shows for both radio and television will most often contain hockey scores and/or information.  And I also understand that, especially during the season, hockey will dominate sports coverage in this country.  What I don’t understand is how those in power of all sports media outlets in this country can continue to feed the lowest common denominator…that they believe that the final score of a meaningless contest between Tampa Bay and Nashville holds more interest in this country than the Raptors basketball game or the Blue Jays baseball game.   Those media types will always trot out the ratings to rationalize their decision, but unless more information is passed on to the fan, and more choices offered, those ratings will never change. 

       Personally, I don’t care if the guy sitting in his home out in the Prairies on a Wednesday night would like the local intermediate women’s floor hockey score, and I don’t care if that guy from west-end Toronto wants that last hockey highlight to satisfy his poolie interests.  I don’t care if there is one more person interested in hockey highlights than any other sport, the point of the matter is that we as Canadians need to grow and create interest in other sports.  If your station, radio or television, is the rights holder for a basketball or baseball team wouldn’t it behoove you to ensure that interest is created in each sport?  Wouldn’t it make smart business sense to try and create interest in those sports?  Television networks point to the low ratings for both baseball and basketball and beat their chests about the sizeable ratings for hockey.  Well, as long as you push any sport but hockey so far into the background that only someone with a set of binoculars can see them then those numbers will never change.

       I have actually stopped watching sports highlights simply because I can’t wait twenty minutes to get information on non-hockey items.  It is especially frustrating when two game sevens are going on in the NBA on the same night and the lead item on all sports stations, including the one that carried the damn basketball games, is hockey.  And not just a report on the game played that night; we get to see a report on the series that isn’t even in action that night.  That’s asinine.

       There are a lot of young basketball fans in this country that are saying no when their parents try to put a hockey stick in their hands.  But whether they will have the same opportunities open to them so they can feed their passion; whether they will have the opportunity to watch and learn from the best and to strive to be a professional player is the question. 

       Are the media outlets of this country selling short the sporting knowledge of the average fan?  This NBA playoff season has witnessed some of the best basketball ever produced.  Games are tight—up and down the court until the final second.  First it was Phoenix and the Lakers putting together some of the most competitive and mesmerizing games seen in years.  And then, when you think those games couldn’t be topped, along came the San Antonio and Dallas series which was likely the best series I have ever seen, and it ranks right up there with some of the greatest series ever played in any sport.   

      Of course, unless you were already a rabid basketball fan you wouldn’t have known about it.  Page five in the newspapers and twenty minutes after the beginning of the sports highlight shows will not provide the information needed to the average sports fan that wants his information quick.  By the time the basketball series is mentioned or written about that fan has moved on to something else.    It’s too bad…that fan will never know what they were missing.  And the ratings will continue to be low.  Nothing will change.

       Round and round we go.