Michael Ventre

Being a hockey grump is not a natural role for me. I love hockey. I’ve often said that I’ve never had a bad time at a hockey game. I’ve seen some bad games, to be sure — I covered the Los Angeles Kings pre-Gretzky; they practically invented bad games — but I’ve always enjoyed the action, the skill, the athleticism, the hitting and the spectacle.

So it pains me to take the position that, despite the Stanley Cup finals matchup pitting Sid the Kid and his Pittsburgh Penguins against the storied Detroit Red Wings, the NHL is destined to remain anchored in the quagmire of niche entertainment.

That’s too bad. But hockey has had a recognition problem long before this series. The ridicule that it received for going with Outdoor Life Network (now Versus) a few years ago seemed like the game’s nadir, and perhaps it was. It was somewhere on your satellite dial. Unfortunately you needed a satellite to find it on your satellite dial.

But that didn’t happen necessarily because hockey missed the marketing boat. It was because the world around hockey changed, and the sport itself remained a quaint, provincial pastime rather than a global attraction. It’s popular mainly in Canada as well as the American North and Northeast, and in pockets of the Midwest. Beyond that, it’s the eccentric uncle of sports, and always has been.

Having Sidney Crosby as the NHL’s poster boy is a heck of a lot better than not having him. Stars have always driven all sports, even the NFL, although you wouldn’t know it by the way that league suppresses individualism. For a time, Wayne Gretzky infused some life into the Kings in Los Angeles, and that was a phenomenal achievement in a land of sun and sand. So of course Sid will create more sizzle for these finals, and for the league in general during the regular season.

Yet there is only so much room for growth. Hockey’s ratings are up modestly, but they’re still tiny. A 1.7 rating for the Penguins’ Eastern Conference-clinching victory over the Flyers is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s close to the ceiling of what hockey is capable of attracting. The finals might even net a slightly higher rating, but that still will keep hockey in the realm of curiosities.

The problem is in the belief that, because the sport’s ratings have spiked somewhat this year, that must represents a trend. That’s highly unlikely. Having Crosby on the Pens, a team that once achieved glory with one of the game’s legends in Mario Lemieux, and matching them against Hockeytown’s heroes is about as dream a matchup as the NHL could possibly hope for.

I would imagine the league also wouldn’t have minded if the New York Rangers and their big market were in the mix instead of the Penguins. But that’s about it for fantasy scenarios.

The NHL and its current growth spurt is one Atlanta-Edmonton finals away from extinction, one Ottawa-San Jose series away from total obscurity, one Carolina-Columbus skirmish away from 2 a.m. “Iron Chef” ratings.

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