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F A I L E D    M I S S I O N S - November 21, 2006 The NHL is often criticized for not marketing its star players. Supposedly fans across North America will start buying tickets in droves once they start. Yet when the league hits its peak interest at playoff time, and audiences begin to grow, the annual playoff beards come out. Suddenly I feel like I’m watching dozens of physics professors competing. These guys come across as geeks on blades. The idea is to show elite athletes performing skills that the average Joe can’t. Instead it comes across as a Fidel Castro look-alike contest. Another new innovation that is supposed to wow us all is the addition of player interviews as the game happens. Right from the bench. Which would be great in the volatile world of pro football. Those guys are so hyper there’d be a ton of classic quotes that would generate all kinds of controversy. But as we all know, watching a pro hockey player interview is a good cure for insomnia. So in the end what we end up with is a real boring interview accentuated by huffing and puffing. Then there’s the t.v. timeouts. An absolute joke. I can’t count how many times I’ve been at the rink and seen a huge surge in momentum, frantic hockey up and down the ice, bodies flying, pucks flying and the fans worked into a frenzy. And then it all comes crashing down. Teams go to their bench and stand there like they’re waiting for a bus. Meanwhile at home people run to the fridge or get the converter out and flip around to see what else is on. Advertisers who think they are paying for a targeted audience are being ripped off. A simple 10 second spot, superimposed over the in-arena activity would be every bit as effective as a commercial that no one is watching. And while I’ve got my whining boots on, riddle me this. Why three stars? Why not two stars or four stars? Why not eleven stars? Or how about this. Not only should we pick the three best players after each game, let’s also have a ceremony for the three worst players after each game. “Ladies and Gentlemen, here are the three goats of tonight’s game.” The person who selected the three goats could then come on and explain his picks. “Well Joe, I picked Smith as the first goat due to his horrible giveaway in overtime. Johnson was my second goat thanks to those horribly soft goals he allowed in the third period. And Baker gets my third goat award for impersonating a pylon in his own end.”

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