Canadian hockey fans are the spoiled trust fund kids of the sport. By the accident of birth, the riches of the world’s greatest game fell into their laps on a golden platter. Many, though not all, of them carry a sense of entitlement with that birthright. Their aura of entitlement is especially annoying, if not insufferable, during international competition.
American hockey fans, on the other hand, are hard-scrabbled and from the wrong side of the tracks. Ignored by most at home, disrespected from the rich and proper heirs north of the border, many Americans have spent much of their lives without easy access to the game.
Canada has the most hockey fans per capita in the world and they are also the most knowledgeable. But that knowledge is often too insular. Many Canadian fans are so far deep into the hockey forest that they cannot see the trees.
America has far less hockey fans per capita than Canada. But they recognize the potential of the game and are often frustrated at its stubborn and insular culture that is slow to adapt to the realities of the day, and handcuffed by a mentality of “that’s just the way hockey is.” Yet Americans are able to get past that by recognizing the ultimate superiority of the game, imperfections, warts and all.
A son of a hoops coach and Stram’s Chiefs
I am the son of a highly successful high school basketball coach and a fan of the Hank Stram era Kansas City Chiefs. Basketball was dad’s game and John Wooden was his hero. Winter weekends feature pro and college basketball on the television. The powerful Chiefs were bigger than life, contestants in the first and fourth Super Bowl and perennially great with legendary Hall of Famers. Dad had a Chiefs season ticket and I was a member of the Coca-Cola huddle club that consisted of kids that sat in the end zone. Sundays at Municipal Stadium were filled with soul, passion and greatness. Dad and I also went to countless Royals games to watch a young expansion team led by Lou Piniella, Amos Otis and Fred Patek that was quickly emerging as a contender. And yet with that strong sports background, I was about to become enthralled with a game I had never seen.
A Premonition
One February morning my dad said we were going to a Blues hockey game. The Kansas City Blues were the top minor league affiliate of the St. Louis Blues and were to host an unfortunate ragtag team known as the Amarillo Wranglers. A car dealer that sponsored dad’s basketball team gave him two tickets. It was also puck night. For some instinctive reason I was overcome with excitement, and talked far more about it with classmates that day than I did about going to Chiefs or Royals games. There was a bizarre inner feeling about this date with destiny. I knew nothing about hockey but I knew this was going to be special. I just didn’t know why.
You Had Me at Hello
One great bonus of attending sports events with dad was that we always got there early, far before warm up time. That was to prove to be integral for my first hockey game. When dad and I walked into a livestock barn known as the American Royal Arena I was handed my puck and we entered the dimly lit ancient old building that had pillars and wooden seats with broken windows that allowed the winter chill into the house. We took our seats and I immediately looked at the sheet of ice, with its colorfully painted with the blue lines, the peppermint stick looking red line, two blue note logos at center ice, and the boards that were battered with black puck marks. An organist began to play in what was known as the organ loft above the end zone where the Blues would enter the ice. It was 15 minutes before warmups. I was blown away. There was nothing like this.
When the players took the ice, it became a religious experience. The uniforms, the sounds of the skates, sticks, and picks were all music to my ears. The Blues won and I never left my seat. I found my game. We became regulars at the Blues games and the household TV was playing a different sport on Sundays.
The Early Years
In those early years, the NHL was going through the Great Expansion and growing fast with weekly games on CBS. With stars such as Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, and Bobby Hull, just to mention a few, the game appeared to be the sport of the future. I begged my parents for every hockey book and magazine we could find. I loved the name pronunciations and interesting background stories of the French-Canadian players, as it was another unique characteristic of the game that set it apart from the rest.
Kansas City got its own NHL expansion team, the Scouts, in 1974. It was an exciting time. We went to the opener against the Blackhawks, my first NHL game, and it was intoxicating. But the Scouts lasted only two years before departing to Colorado.
The NHL left CBS for NBC and then got cancelled by the network in 1975. With no hometown team and no national TV games, it became a challenge to follow a sport that was ignored in the local papers. I relied on a subscription to the Hockey News and the radio for my hockey fix.
The best radio call ever was Dan Kelly calling St. Louis Blues games on KMOX. The signal was strong and the call was even stronger. Kelly was a Hall of Famer and could paint a hi-definition picture of a game on the radio with an electrifying, but also precise call of the games. Bruce Martin of Detroit and Al Shaver of Minnesota also kept me going with their radio calls during this dark period. Countless American hockey fans have gone through this same experience as they had to be resourceful while not letting go of their favorite, though inaccessible sport.
The Miracle
When the USA won gold at the 1980 Olympics it was a watershed moment for the country and the sport. Unlike my fellow countrymen, the Miracle on Ice was not about fighting a war against the Soviet Union through hockey. Instead it was a vindication of the sport itself. I felt as if my game was vindicated as the greatest. It was the greatest win in sports history. And it’s something American hockey fans truly deserve for all that they have had to go through to stick with the game.
Suicide Trips
Not long after getting my driver’s license, I began to cross the state of Missouri for Blues games. I would leave home in the morning and return in the middle of the night. This became a regular routine of mine and helped me reconnect in a more direct way with the game. I would later repeat this experience in Las Vegas, driving long hours back and forth to Kings games. It was amazing how many other American fans I met on those trips were doing the same thing. I would swap stories with fans before games and between periods and shared a unique kinship that only hockey can offer.
Gretzky Saves Us
When I moved to Las Vegas in the mid 1980s, hockey was treated as an ugly stepchild. You had to beg the sportsbooks to put just one game on TV. The books grudgingly took bets. But that all changed in 1988. In a truly transformational moment, Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings. All of a sudden, the books were putting on games front and center with people actually watching them. A dramatic increase in hockey betting took off as well. The Kings were put on local Vegas radio and their cable TV package was allowed in Sin City as well. It was symbolic of what was going in the country with the Sun Belt expansion that was made possible only because of The Great One. He made the game mainstream and more accessible.
Technology Delivers Permanent Solution
First with cable and satellite TV, and now with the internet, you can live on a tropical island and be wired into hockey. High-definition TV has made the sport immensely more watchable. The Internet provides an end run around newspapers that ignored the game. You can now follow any team that you want with full coverage from multiple sources. With expansion and technology, there are more hockey fans and potential for growth than ever before.
Our Game
The one constant through all of the changes in the sport is the loyalty and passion of its American fans. We have earned our way. Following hockey was often a difficult challenge but we would not settle for lesser games. With relentless determination, dedication, and a refusal to let go we have earned the right to state boldly that hockey is our game.
