Hockey Fade

No NHL season. No one wants to officially state that, but delaying the season month after month sure sounds like a canceled season. Even if the season kicked off in 2013, what kind of excitement would we have?  Would there be a Cup? who knows, many die-hard sports fans have lost interest and have rediscovered college football and the NFL. Yes there's other hockey to see, but the damage is done - maybe not for everyone, but for many, including sponsors - it's not too good. This shouldn't be a shock, we've all seen it coming. It's not the same game I grew up with. It's great to see teams like Winnipeg return to Canada, but expanding the league and abandoning Canada may have made the league more cash, but it changed the feel of the game. Longer season's and more games only seem to water-down the excitement of a game. Changing the rules over and over again hasn't been much help either. The NHL may survive this, but hockey overall has taken a hit. At the youth level it's become a closed sport - extremely expensive and time consuming. Traveling hours to match one "select" team against another. House leagues are disappearing, pond hockey mostly just a faded memory of out door rink's past. It always comes down to the money. Money has slowly filtered out the blue collar kids, and turned our beloved sport into big business. You want to save hockey? Bring back the outdoor rinks and get more kids skating. Put the heart back into hockey, and maybe that will filter up to the big leagues someday. Until then....There's always lacrosse....Thank God for that!