I have a problem with ESPN.
After many a letter, e-mail, and even a phone call to ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn., with no response of course, the college hockey coverage has not improved.
With the NHL out of commission for the season, college hockey across North America was all of a sudden the only hockey to watch.
Attendance was up three fold this year at college ice sheets, and in the WCHA alone, over 2 million college hockey fans packed into their club’s barn.
But every Friday and Saturday night, there was no college hockey blips on SportsCenter. It’s all about the stupid Red Sox and Yankees rivalry, the NBA, and Barry Bonds who is like a virus to cable TV. Well I guess now he’s an injured virus.
The networks of ESPN refuse to air college hockey until the Frozen Four and even then don’t blink because you’ll miss the highlights on SportsCenter that night.
While March Madness runs rampant like a disease through the nation, nobody but the dedicated catch college hockey fever. That’s partly due to the putrid coverage nationally.
The Pioneers won every single title they could this year including their own tournament the Denver Cup, the regular season WCHA Championship, the WCHA Final Five Championship, the Northeast Regional Championship, the Gold Pan Championship for the better end of the series between them and Colorado College, and the National Championship, again.
Throughout the course of the season did we hear a whisper about any of this or anything about anything inside college hockey on ESPN? No, no we didn’t. Am I upset? Yes, yes I am. Should you be upset? Yes, yes you should be.
College hockey players are just as deserving of recognition on a national level as say college basketball players or “The Virus” Barry Bonds. I have to take a shower every time I see anything about him on television.
Hockey players on the collegiate level play more games than college basketball. It’s a much more grueling sport with as much if not more excitement than college basketball. That’s not an opinion. It’s a fact.
Now, why doesn’t ESPN take advantage of the absence of hockey nationwide and up the coverage of the next best, or in my opinion, the best thing? There is no answer. Nobody knows and nobody within the networks is willing to answer.
The country is sick of the Red Sox and the Yankees, sick of Barry Bonds, and sick of every single NBA thug. The boys over in Bristol need to bring hockey back to America’s television audience.
Do you know how long the highlight was for the Pioneers when they won the national title? It was 30 seconds. That’s it. If you sneezed, blinked, or went to the bathroom, you would have missed it.
The world is naturally unfair, but it doesn’t have to be ridiculous. This is ridiculous.
On the other hand, we don’t need ESPN to tell us that we’re dominant. The rest of the hockey world respects us as one of the three best universities ever to play the game.
This is my problem with ESPN. They have tunnel vision and we, the viewing audience, are sick of it.
For the second year in a row we are national champions for men’s hockey and despite our miserable 30 seconds of fame and a Top Play Nominee from Chris Berman, we are one of the best college hockey teams. Ever.
That is all recruits. Dismissed.
