With all the talk of government shut down because they can’t agree on the budget and the NFL labor deal isn’t going anywhere because of they are arguing over everything from money to who should over see the meetings I’m reminded of hockey.  I remember back in the day before the strike season in the NHL, hockey was one of the top sports in the country. Think about it before the missed season the NHL had multiple games on TV each week, NHL highlights were featured on ESPN, and people actually cared what was going on. Now look at what happened since the NHL came back. You lucky to find two games on TV a week, the highlights are buried on Sportcenter toward the end of the show, and I would bet 90 percent of America doesn’t know this is one of the biggest hockey weekends in the entire year.

Did you know it’s the final weekend of the NHL regular season? 8 teams are still alive to make the playoffs almost none of the seeds have been finalized including the top 3 in the east and the top 2 in the west, and a semi local team Tampa Bay has made the playoffs. But does anybody know or care? I don’t think they do so I have to ask why. How did hockey go from one of the big 4 to a second or even third tier  sport? The only answer I can find is the missed season.

ESPN stopped carrying the games and fans stopped caring, so could we see the same thing in the NFL. What happens if there is no football next year? Will CBS and FOX stop carrying the games? Will the fans be so angry they boycott going to games when football resumes? You never know, I bet the experts though hockey was a big enough business to survive a missed season.