O Brodeur, Where Art Thou?

Like I've mentioned a thousand times before, I don't have many channels here in my dormitory. I do have ESPN, so I watch that often. I probably watch SportsCenter twice a day, not because I particularly like it, but because relative to everything else that's on, it's pretty interesting.

Anyway, my point. Tonight is opening night for the NHL and I haven't seen, heard or read a WORD of it on ESPN. No preseason analysis, nothing on the bottom-line, no passing reference, nothing. If I didn't enjoy hockey the way I do, and thus looked into the upcoming season on the internet and by reading magazines, I would have absolutely no idea the NHL even existed.

What makes me angry about this is the suttle reason for it all: ESPN doesn't have the rights to any hockey games. That belongs to local affiliates and Versus, formally known as the Outdoor Life Network. So because ESPN won't benefit from any hyping of hockey, they've chosen to ignore it all together. Not only that, in my opinion it's an attempt to drive down the ratings of Versus, who are trying to become the (long-needed) competitor to ESPN, hockey being Versus' biggest asset in doing so. ESPN is figuring the less they talk about hockey, the less people will watch their competing networks.

Maybe this goes against the virtues of tried-and-true capitalism, but I simply don't like that ESPN has, in my opinion, chosen to ignore hockey so they can drive out competition. I know it's "only" hockey, but it's still a major sport. A sport that thousands of people still love and thousands more would love if more people talked about it. So gimme some God blessed hockey coverage!