No More Russian Rookies Could Be a Good Thing for the NHL

May 6, 2015; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin (8) shoots the puck on New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist (30) in the second period in game four of the second round of the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Verizon Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Recently former Detroit Red Wings defenceman Slava Fetisov called for new laws restricting Russian hockey players from leaving the motherland before the age 28. Typically we’d chalk this up to Russians being Russians with their Red Scare non-sense but Fetisov actually holds power here and could make this a real thing. Fetisov is a Senator now and was previously the Minister of Sport, a position President Vladimir Putin personally asked him to do, until 2008. If he really believes this, I really can’t foresee it not going into law here in the upcoming future. Putin, the leader of all things Russian over there, obviously trusts his judgment, why else would he allow him to be the Minister of Sport, so the writing could very well be on the wall.

The effects on the NHL would be massive, though the idea of Russians being risky picks wouldn’t exactly be a new concern. There’s a long history of Russian picks that have flamed out and chose a career back home than staying around in the NHL. For every Alexander Ovechkin there’s an Ilya Kovalchuk. Those two names say it all. Ovechkin is easily one of the most recognizable names in the NHL, a superstar and face of the NHL. Kovalchuk left the NHL, still in his prime, to head back to Russia after signing one of the biggest contracts in NHL history.

Imagine a world without Ovechkin or Evgeni Malkin. The talent pool shrinks substantially, here’s a list of current Russian NHLers. Even looking at this year’s crop it’s easy to feel the blow. For example look at your own Columbus Blue Jackets. In many mocks the Jackets are selecting Russian D Ivan Provorov, one of the top two defencemen listed in this year’s draft, behind Noah Hanifin. If Fetisov’s law was in place, the Jackets would then have the chance to grab the 3rd best defencemen out there. BUT they also might not. Due to the scarcity of the high quality defencemen, then maybe the teams in front of the Jackets grab one, the Jackets are now looking at the 4th best possible.

While this all seems like doomsday, the long term effect could actually be a saving grace. With less high grade prospects, the quality of product will obviously go down (to the extent of how much depends on how much you believe Russians add to the NHL) in the league. This would force the NHL to put more emphasis on future developing American (and Canadien) talent. That could be through a wide variety of different approaches, but that’s not the point of this article but will be covered a different day.

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What is important is this. In a recent study done by the MLB they found that 70% of male fans aged 12-17 credited “playing the sport” as a reason for fandom of baseball. This was through a recent ESPN article highlighting the concern of losing the casual viewer (http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/58508/baseball-is-dying-again). Based on these numbers you would correlate playing the sport into fandom, with the conclusion being the more kids play your sport, the more audience you’ll have. Meaning more emphasis on the American youth hockey would not only improve the quality of prospect and improve the quality product of the game BUT increase US fandom in the sport.

Included in that article are figures reporting that participation in many of the major sports has been dropping. Baseball went from 8.8 million in 2000 down to 5.3 million in 2013 and though they don’t discuss actual numbers, they go on to say that basketball, football and soccer are also dropping in participation. Hockey seems to tell a different tale. According to USAHockey.com, the total number of USA Hockey players jumped from 439,140 in 2000 to 529,417 in the 2013-2014 year. That’s an amazing 90,227 person jump in those years. Trying to get it broken down to Youth Hockey is a little more difficult but I found stats on 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 seasons. In 2012-2013 they had 349,661 18 or younger with that number increasing in 2013-2014 to 351,890 participants, an increase of 2,229 participants. This is encouraging for the state of hockey but it also illustrates the uphill battle to contend with the 5.3 million in baseball.

There’s a lot of reasons why that number is higher than what plans out with kids past a certain age. One, baseball is a little easier to play for younger kids with tee-ball leagues and coach pitch making it an easy first sport for many kids. Also is the time of year. Baseball season is during the summer which perfectly matches up with most kids’ summer vacations. Hockey is mainly a winter sport, though it can be played in the summer. Problem is kids and, mostly, parents don’t want to spend summers inside when it’s finally nice outside.

Maybe most importantly, hockey has a mass amount of tools needed. Helmets, pads and goals can be expensive, plus it’s a bit of a hassle getting a kid to want to do all that. Then throw in rink rental time, which is a more higher costs then going to a field for practice or renting out a field for games. Then on top of all that is the need to learn even the basic mode of transportation for the sport…ice skating, which can be frustrating and confusing for younger kids. It’s easier just to run around, it’s harder to learn to ice skate then apply that to a sport.This is where hockey is already facing an up hill battle.

Topping more on seems to be the cycle. The cycle is essentially this. A kid watches TV and he/she sees Lebron James on Sportscenter or on this commercial or during the game, they see Peyton Manning on David Letterman and on Papa Johns commercials, etc, etc. The kid then wants to do what they do and ends up playing that sport. Hockey doesn’t seem to get that love. You don’t see very many Sydney Crosby commercials or Ovechkin’s in popular culture. You may seem them during NHL games but not during primetime TV or anytime really. That’s a result in market research. James and Manning are far more recognizable due to the popularity in their sport and therefore the rich get richer as the commercial only restarts the cycle and pushes those athletes to higher levels of fame.

The NHL can’t break this for many reasons but the increase in young players makes it seem like this could be the beginning of change. If that report is correct then we should start to see an increase in viewership for NHL games. But where? That’s the biggest point. Where can fans get a chance to watch NHL regular season games? Where are the playoffs? Many more sports are going to cable channel playoff games but it’s unfair to compare NBCSN vs ESPN or TNT.

While NBCSN is available in about 70% of households, many don’t even know it exists.A far cry from ESPN where even non-sports viewers know that channel and what it’s programming is and would probably also be able to tell you about Sportscenter, it’s flagship sports news show. I doubt many SPORTS VIEWERS even know what NBCSN is or what they could find on that channel. It doesn’t help that ESPN barely covers NHL on Sportscenter, usually offering very few clips while allowing moronic talking heads misinterpret other sporting events. Sportscenter is to sports news what MTV is to music videos now.

Viewership is generally down for Stanley Cup games across the board, though they still can post solid numbers when given the chance. Last year, the Stanley Cup games that were on NBC posted an average of 3.47 while the games on NBCSN posted an average 1.85. That 1.85 is substantially better than the first years of NBC non-main NBC channeling where OLN/Versus (which are one in the same and have become NBCSN) posted an average of .5 over 4 games in 2006 and 2007. (Numbers according to Sports Media Watch) Compare that to last year’s World Series posting an average of 9.5 over 7 games all aired on FOX.

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The only thing that will change those things is more fans supporting the game through viewership. We learned that youth participation is a huge catalyst for future fandom and can reasonably infer that fandom will spread quicker when it gets into the “mainstream” popularity of pop culture. One start to do that would be smarter matchups. I don’t mean for teams but for the games. Though they could have spaced their playoff games out during the day on Saturday, Sunday and even today, they continue to hard-headly go against the NBA in prime time. It’s mistakes like this that hurt the NHL.

The NBA Finals posted a 9.3 over 5 games, all on ABC. Why challenge that during a 3 day weekend? People will watch if you don’t force sports fans to pick over one of the most watched sports in America. Baseball doesn’t really have another finals to go against, so it’s a little easier on them. The NHL has to battle the NBA and needs to play it smarter. Also if NBC wants to invest in the NHL they need to think long term. Only showing 3 games out of 6 or 7 isn’t a way to build your investment. They need to go full out. Can you imagine if they tried to get a show started that way? Imagine trying to start watching something like Lost. Two weekends out of the month it’s on NBC the other two is on some random channel you’ve never heard before. They need to make it more consistent.

Consistency not just for the finals, though that would be a GREAT start, consistency for the regular season. Part of what carries a sport is nationwide storylines. The NHL doesn’t have this. Former ESPN Senior Vice-President and Director of News Vince Doria once said in an interview with Ed Sherman, “(Hockey’s) a sport that engenders a very passionate local following. If you’re a Blackhawks fan in Chicago, you’re a hardcore fan….where it really doesn’t transfer much to is a national discussion, which is something that typifies what we do.For whatever reason, and this is my unsubstantiated research on it, hockey doesn’t generate that same kind of interest nationwide. You look at national talk shows. Hockey rarely is a topic. People in Boston aren’t that interested with what’s going on with the Blackhawks.” I believe that stems from the unavailability of those games that create these storylines and create these non-home team players we love to see. Without that, other teams playing for the Cup doesn’t mean much to the casual hockey fan.

What this really boils down to is the lack of Russian players will put more pressure on the NHL to step up it’s game and put pressure on a network to invest in, NBC’s deal is up in 2020-2021. The NHL needs to get more youths involved to build more talent to take the Russian places and to build more future fans. Only then will it grow into the sport we all know it can be. We might look back and say this was the tipping point. The day the Russians stopped coming over was the day the NHL started building domestically and really built the fandom of the sport.

Or maybe they’ll never pass that law and this article has just been a way to enjoy some time on Memorial Day. Either way, the point is….USA! USA! USA! USA!

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