Gary Bettman's successor has been found. The man capable of taking the NHL to new levels, the man who will take the league to the pinnacle of the sports mountain has arrived. HockeyDirt is officially nominating Fox sports Columnist Ian O'Connor for the NHL's top job.
O'Connor laid out his vision for the league in a recent column, NHL still isn't must-see TV for Americans. Now before you conclude that this is yet another drive-by piece of hack writing from a journalist who gets a kick out of taking cheap shots at a sport and a league he obviously does not follow or understand, please read on.
O'Connor's analysis of what ails the NHL is effulgent. He's obviously seen the NHL's latest player-centric marketing campaign and found it wanting, but he has some Jack Handy-like Deep Thoughts on how to build support for the league around key personalities. Sidney Crosby and the other players at the centre of the new campaign lack the "right stuff" that O'Connor believes is needed to take the NHL over the top.
...there aren't enough transcending personalities to sell hockey to the average Joe bouncing between T.O.'s return to Philly and the Yankees' disaster in Detroit. Sidney Crosby, boy wonder, is being pumped as the Next Gretzky, but it would sure help the league if the Next Gretzky after the Next Gretzky was born in New York, Chicago or L.A. instead of Nova Scotia.
It is shocking that O'Connor is a journalist when he could be making millions as a marketing consultant with strategic thinking like the idea that the NHL needs more "transcending personalities." His selection of Terrell Owens as the "role model" for the new NHL is nothing short of inspired. On this point O'Connor echoes LA Times Columnist Helene Elliott who considers NHLers "too stoic & selfless."
Clearly the NHL has no personality who transcends the normal, everyday levels of jerkiness quite like Terrell Owens. Sean Avery seemed to be taking advanced obnoxious lessons from Owens last season, but so far this year Avery has been letting the league down by behaving like a near model citizen. He should be running around griping about not getting enough time on the power play, not enough passes from Derek Armstrong and not enough respect from Coach Mark Crawford. If this treatment continues O'Connor would surely suggest that Avery would be out of his mind not to demand a trade & a raise. While he's at it he might also want to get his name in the headlines with some kind of bizarre overdose-pharmaceutical reaction-suicide attempt. Questioning Kings' Captain Mattias Nordstrom's sexual orientation would be icing on the cake.
Among O'Connor's other "thoughts":
- ...the Stanley Cup finals can draw fewer people to the television screen than a college softball game
- The NHL is only big news when Wayne Gretzky and his wife are caught up in the manic swirl of a gambling investigation straight out of a Sopranos script.
- ...your average NHL game has all the buzz of an Arena Football League scrimmage
- ...more than ever, the NHL is retreating from the ranks of the relevant, shrinking in the shadows of the NFL, MLB, NBA and major college basketball and football.
- In the end, professional ice hockey isn't a TV-friendly product, and the vast majority of its players represent a faceless lot.
This is not the first time Ian O'Connor has turned his brilliant mind to the NHL. In a 2004 column ("NHL needs a new logo to go with blood-stained image," - The last time he wrote about hockey?) O'Connor turned his mind to the issue of the NHL logo. Once again O'Connor's insights were nothing short of incandescent.
...it's time to draw up a brand new NHL logo. The image of a bloodied and concussed hockey player would be as fitting as the (NBA logo) silhouette of Jerry West with the ball.
The case for Ian O'Connor as NHL Commish is clear. Gary Bettman, move aside.
Nice one. You hit the nail on the head here. O'Connor is a complete douche rocket, pardon my language.
Posted by: drew | October 12, 2006 at 09:04 AM
He forgot the other time hockey makes the news: when something happens along the lines of Bertuzzi/McSorley incidents, etc.
I note that O'Connor is billed as an "award-winning columnist" at the end of his columns. I'm not sure where he got his award, but I'm sure it was store-bought.
Posted by: Peter W | October 12, 2006 at 01:09 PM
Why do these writers even bother to write this garbage? If hockey is so ignorance-worthy, why don't you do just that and keep your upturned nose out of it? Go back to writing articles about me-first players and sports "stories" that everyone else has already covered. Obviously it was important enough that you had to devote ten minutes to think up a good argument. Douchebag.
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