Even a Token Marketing Effort Might Have Swayed Hoop Fans

Ads You Never Saw:

“There’s ONE Professional Sport Playing.”

“This Arena a Homeless Shelter for NBA Fans.”

“Game On . . . and Theirs Is Off.”

While the NBA burned bridges with much of its fan base--which seems to be in a rush to rebuild them--because of its labor strife, the NHL fiddled away a chance to do some missionary work.

Attendance was up only 160 a game while NBA arenas were dark.

The only real benefit, according to players, was seeing their exploits on television sports highlight shows without having to wade through alley-oop passes to get them.

Maybe there would be no converts, because it’s hard for most basketball fans to gravitate toward a game that doesn’t include dunks, but to not even try to lure the occasional stray fan into an arena is unacceptable.

Unless you’re NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, formerly an NBA employee, who cited the fact that baseball and football were still both playing as reasons not to try to chip away some NBA dollars.

“I don’t know anyone who plans their marketing around other leagues’ work stoppages,” he said in Tampa at the All-Star game. “No one thought that made any sense, nor did I.

“In a space of a couple of months, when there’s uncertainty whether a sport is or is not going to come back, people aren’t going to change their allegiances overnight. The places where we’re soft--and it’s cyclical--it can be related to a variety of things, team performance most notably.”

The NHL is extremely soft in Southern California, where the Kings frequently play in a half-full Great Western Forum, and attendance is sliding at Anaheim, even though the Mighty Ducks have two of the best promotion properties extant in Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne.

The Kings’ answer is promoting “Serious Hockey. Serious Fans,” which flatters the customers but is preaching to the choir.

Disney’s with the Ducks is another silly bit with a mascot, some pyrotechnics and hearing-impairing sound and fury, signifying something less than nothing.

According to Bettman, “TV ratings in the U.S. and Canada and attendance is holding firm.” The NHL plays to 90% of capacity, he added, which means there aren’t that many tickets available anyway.

True, perhaps, but tell that to hockey folks in Southern California, who might well have welcomed some extra discretionary entertainment dollars--Bettman insists none were left on the table--but who instead watched that money go to the mall for more high-powered Christmas presents.

CULTURE CLASH

Only a cynic would cast aspersions on a well-paid athlete donating money to charity, because everybody wins. The charity gets more wherewithal to help with its cause, and the athlete gets a good-guy boost and a tax deduction.

So what?

So when an athlete double-dips, the whole thing stinks.

The odor coming from Ottawa was generated by the Senators’ Alexei Yashin, who blunted criticism from a protracted contract dispute a year ago by offering the National Arts Centre $1 million over five years. He sent a $200,000 check, but last week canceled the $800,000 remaining on the deal because, according to the NAC, an $85,000 payment to Tatiana Entertainment was not made.

Tatiana Entertainment is Valery and Tatiana Yashin, his parents.

Yashin, fifth in the league in scoring with 20 goals and 53 points, has denied any wrongdoing, and said that an explanation is forthcoming.

“But not until Wednesday,” he said. “Not until I get back to Ottawa [the Senators play at New Jersey on Tuesday night]. What I do best is play hockey, and that’s what I want to concentrate on right now.”

While he figures out his story, the NAC falls under scrutiny of the Canadian Parliament, and officials’ heads are rolling.

END OF THE LINE

Wayne Gretzky knew it was coming the day Michael Jordan announced he was retiring, because it had been coming a long time. It’s still coming.

“Because of my situation, because of my age, I guess I’m always going to be asked ‘When are you going to retire? When are you going to be done?’ ” Gretzky said. “And it’s going to happen. I’m going to have to retire, but I haven’t thought a whole lot about it.

“I think when Jordan retired I became more of a fan. I was disappointed that he was leaving. I didn’t look at it as, well, ‘Michael Jordan’s retiring and he’s younger than I am.’ I looked at it as a fan’s point of view. I’m going to miss this guy playing, like everyone else. . . .

“I don’t fib anybody about it. The end of the year, I’ll sit down and make my decision on what my future is. I’ve got enough going on in my life that I don’t need to be sitting down thinking about what I’m going to be doing the next couple of months.”

ROCKET BLAST IN MANHATTAN

Folks in New York figured that Pavel Bure would wind up playing there, but few figured he would then board a plane and head home--to Florida.

The New York Rangers are undergoing severe criticism for their failure to close a deal for Bure with the Vancouver Canucks, who some say commanded less from the Florida Panthers. After he got off the plane from Moscow and scored twice against the New York Islanders, then came back a night later with a goal against the Rangers, the heat got worse for Ranger General Manager Neil Smith.

Part of the deal getting Bure to Florida was his new contract, said to be five years for $47.5 million, breaking down this way: $8 million, $9 million, three years at $10 million, plus a club option for a sixth season at $11 million, or a $500,000 buyout if the Panthers don’t pick it up.

MEETING IN A MIRROR

The general manager of the Islanders looked at his club, saw it wasn’t responding to his coach and knew there was only one thing to do. The coach had to go.

The coach sized up the situation and decided things had to change and getting rid of the coach was the best way to change it.

They hadn’t won in 11 games.

So the coach quit, perhaps saving the general manager from firing him. Because the coach and general manager are Mike Milbury, you can only imagine how that meeting went.

“When the team quits on the coach, it’s tough to get them back,” Milbury said and then decided the best way to get them back was to elevate Bill Stewart, who then elevated them to a 5-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

And then there is the case of Mike Keenan, who predicted his firing by the Canucks, which took no great prescience. Keenan is a veteran of being fired, and his days were numbered when Brian Burke became general manager last summer.

Keenan’s replacement, Marc Crawford, took the Colorado Avalanche to the Stanley Cup but resigned after last season because of problems with management.

Because Crawford is still under contract to the Avalanche, Vancouver must compensate Colorado and could save $400,000 and a draft choice if he is not immediately successful.

If the Canucks make the playoffs and advance, compensation could be as high as $600,000 plus a first-round pick. A non-playoff performance generates a $200,000 payoff.

SLAP SHOTS

The Kings have indicated interest in Philadelphia Flyer malcontent Alexandre Daigle, but he could wind up in Edmonton, traded for Oiler malcontent Andrei Kovalenko. The Flyers would seem to get the better of that deal because Kovalenko has 13 goals and 27 points to Daigle’s three and five, but it’s hard to say whether Kovalenko would clean up an act that saw him miss a plane from Orange County to Edmonton after a serious party recently. . . . Everywhere you go in Canada, you see advertisements for hard-hitting hockey, but a Gallup poll, commissioned by the CBC, indicated two in three Canadians want fighting banned in the NHL. Also, 61% said ticket prices were too high and 79% said players make too much money. . . . Maurice “Rocket” Richard on what would make hockey better: “I don’t like to see players on the ice for 20-30 seconds. You can’t get warmed up, you can hardly skate across the ice. I wish they would let them play 1 1/2-2 minutes.” . . . Expect the NHL to use the two-referee system in the playoffs. . . . If Howard Milstein is able to buy the Washington Redskins, his brother Edward will buy his share of the New York Islanders.