No One Is Scoring on This Power Play

I like hockey. It’s the fastest game that men play. It’s exciting to watch. The action swirls as in no other sport.

It’s part heavyweight championship fight, part ice dance. It has men wielding sticks. It has enough esoteric rules to keep the purists happy. I even like the fights because I understand them. Look! If a guy bumps into you coming off an escalator, even though he’s going only--maybe--4 m.p.h. or less, you get angry, right? You want to say, “Hey, man! Why don’t you watch where you’re going?!” You have to resist the urge to push him. Punch him.

Now, consider if the guy is moving at 20 to 25 m.p.h. And you’re moving at the same rate of speed.

And, consider that he does it on purpose. Now, that’s a collision that will make you mad. Even homicidal. And you already have a club in your hands.

It’s no wonder hockey gets ballistic.

Hockey heroes are often the nicest guys in sport. Gordie Howe was probably the greatest to play the game. But he was as patient explaining the game to reporters as any superstar I have known--with the possible exception of Magic Johnson.

But, having said that, I must say the NHL players (and owners) remind me of a kid playing with a stick of dynamite in the present strike. I can’t believe these guys can’t find a better way to deal with their labor problems than by putting the sport on the brink of extinction. These guys really are icing the puck.

Some years ago, in a burst of candor, I wrote that, while I liked hockey, I had to confess I never saw a goal scored. I mean, if that red light didn’t go on, I wouldn’t know whether one had been scored or not.

I was only half kidding.

You see, that’s the flaw in the ice game. That puck is only about 2 3/4 inches wide and less than an inch thick. You take it on blind faith that it’s there.

It’s disastrous for television. In addition to its already low profile, that puck is flying at 100 m.p.h. when it is visible. A tennis ball looks like a balloon by comparison.

A football is highly visible at all times even when thrown by Dan Marino. It’s perfect for the television screen.

A basketball is the size of a full moon. You can see it go into a basket, all right. Even a slam dunk can be seen from the rafters.

A baseball is somewhat smaller, but it is seldom surrounded by 10 or more players in bulky costumes and pads.

What this, of course, means, is that hockey is the least felicitous of sports on television. While other sports manage to carve out billion-dollar contracts from the great god network television, hockey must live within its means. In other words, it must subsist on seat sales, gate revenue. Hockey is sport’s stepchild. It must sit by the fire and envy.

The gaudy salaries paid out in other sports--Bobby Bonilla’s $6 million, Ryne Sandberg’s $7 million--are a function of television revenues. Television is the reason a pro football franchise in, say Green Bay, can compete with a franchise in a metropolis such as New York. The game could not begin to pay Joe Montana a multimillion-dollar salary if it had to depend solely on gate revenues from eight home games per season.

Hockey sees these swollen salaries, the comparatively wide open free agency, the high life enjoyed by other sports and, probably thinks, why not me?

But hockey’s best TV offer was $17 million per year. For the whole league. The last time we looked, pro football was getting $17 million per franchise from TV.

Baseball does not share revenue--save for the billion-dollar, multiyear network contract. Regional broadcasting and telecasting rights are kept by individual teams. And the Yankees pulled down $42 million for their local share alone last year. That’s twice what a whole league is paid in hockey by TV.

Without a television fallback of those dimensions, hockey must exist on poverty row. What is needed is parity with other sports in the counting house. This is attainable only if TV comes in with its big-bucks subsidy.

It’s hard to imagine how striking the most lucrative and attention-getting part of the season can be a step toward getting that equalization.

It looks suicidal. Hockey is holding a gun to its head. I don’t think I’m going to see a goal scored here, either.