Young talent is taking over the NHL and bringing hockey to its new golden age. Generational talents like Connor Mcdavid, Austin Matthews, Patrick Liene, Jack Eichel, Artemi Panerin, and Mitch Marner. Pair those with future hall of famers like Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane , Johnathan Toews, Carey Price, and Henrick Lundqvist and you have one of the most exciting sports league’s in North America. So what prevents the NHL from taking that next step in the United States from being a playoff only sport to a more nationally watched game like football or basketball? The fact that people believe hockey cannot fit into American sports dialect because it’s not played widely enough is simply not true. The NHL has a personality problem.
The NHL is one of the most exciting sports to watch in north America it combines the fast pace breakouts and passing of basketball with the contact of football. There is no reason why Americans shouldn’t love the sport. The fact hockey is seen as a “purely Canadian sport” is simply not true. Although 50 percent of NHL players are Canadian there are only 7 NHL Canadian teams. And of the original 6 teams only 2 were from Canada. No, the problem the NHL has is with player personalities. The NFL has certain personas who are simply over the top WWE type personality’s. The likes of Richard Sherman, Von Miller, Rex Ryan, Rob Gronkowski, and Cam Newton give football an off field element that makes it entertaining to follow. The Likes of Russel Westbrooks, Lebron James, Steph Curry, Gregg Popovich, Doc Rivers, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Draymond Green the list goes on and on of NBA personalities that make the game what it is. The NHL just doesn’t have a lot of that.
Hockey is such a team sport that it is hard to have personalities in a locker room. Team mates don’t want to say things that alienate other players or put a bullseye on their back on the ice. NHL GM’s and coaches don’t take things said out of turn in a locker room kindly. It can result in players being demoted and even traded. Take PK Subban defenseman for the Nashville Predators. Subban is the NHLs most flamboyant personality. Wearing lavish suits and fashions when arriving to games like NBA players and being one of the most open players in terms of answering to the media. In short Subban didn’t fit the cut and dry personality’s that Montreal wanted to build around so he was traded to Nashville. In return Montreal received talented and almost robotic personality Shea Weber. Thus is the danger of personalities in the modern day NHL locker room.
So what needs to happen? A dramatic culture change, that being said a dramatic culture change is hard to facilitate. The NHL has so many long standing traditions think of how hard a locker room culture will be to change. If the NHL wants to reach the North American sports fan they must create more than the on ice product though. There must be drama and nasty break ups. Oh snap moments that make your ear do a double take of what a player or coach said in the postgame press conference. This shouldn’t be viewed as a negative for hockey culture either. Look at all the great ferocious rivalries in the sport how much more, cut throat, if you will, rivalries like Saint Louis Chicago, Boston Toronto, New York Detroit would become if one more layer of hard hitting action, off the ice, was added to Hockey’s great tradition.
