The United States hockey team lost to Canada in their gold medal match Sunday, embarrassing the entire nation. No, I’m not going to use this blog to make fun of Canada—that’s been done to death, plus as you may or may not know, we are insanely popular in Canada. Instead I’m going to vent against the Americans who tricked me into caring about hockey for one game, only to lose.
Many will say it was a tremendous accomplishment (and upset), for this group of underdogs to even make it as far as they did, but since I don’t know anything about hockey, nor do I know any of the players, this argument rings false. I see no reason the U.S. shouldn’t be the best hockey team in the world, the same way someone who knows nothing about football would see nothing odd about the Detroit Lions winning the Super Bowl.
However, having now watched a hockey game from start to finish, I think I have some good insight into why this sport isn’t more popular in the U.S. As many have pointed out, the sport just doesn’t look that great on TV. It’s too fast and hard to follow. So here are three pointers on how things could be “improved” to make hockey the next NASCAR.
- Get rid of the ice skates. It’s a cute gimmick, and I see why you’d want them for the winter Olympics, but the ice skates make the sport both really impossible to play, and way too fast. Just thinking of people running around on ice, slipping and falling down all the time makes me laugh. And in sports, if you can’t make them cry, make them laugh (and if you can’t make them laugh, make them drunk–the NASCAR formula).
- Address the “teeth” problem. The United States is a dental-obsessed country. We’re not satisfied with having the straightest teeth in the world—we now also demand the whitest. All hockey players are missing teeth. If you’re going into hockey, you have to basically come to terms with the fact that at some point in the near future, your teeth will be knocked out. This is absolutely horrible. Who in their right mind would willingly pursue a course of action that leads to major dental surgery? No one, which is why most hockey today is played by robots. That’s a problem as people can’t relate to robots, unless they have been programmed to have human emotions or have sex with us.
- Add Snoopy. This one is pretty easy. Look at this simple formula. People ice skating around doing leaps and tricks and things=does not draw a crowd. People ice skating around doing leaps and tricks and things and one of them is dressed as Snoopy=huge crowd! Snoopy on Ice is immensely popular. Just imagine him getting hip checked by [INSERT NAME OF POPULAR HOCKEY PLAYER HERE]. Now you’ve got my attention…and my heart.