The Hockey Stop

The sad story of professional sports pricing out the average fan is well documented.

ESPN.com recently ran an Outside the Lines feature story on the sparsely populated Legends Suite at the new Yankee Stadium. It turns out Wall Street hucksters aren't even willing to spend the $1,200 in this down economy to get so close to the field they can see the brand of sunflower seeds being spit out of Derek Jeter's mouth.

So it is with some NHL franchises. According to the New York Times' SlapShot blog , by the time a family of four buys tickets, parks and eats at Air Canada Center for a Toronto Maple Leafs game they will have spent a whopping $585.57. The Leafs raised their ticket prices by 10.2 percent followed by Pittsburgh at 8 percent and the Rangers at 7.1 percent.

This with the United States unemployment rate at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent and 7.2 million jobs lost since the recession began in Dec. 2007. The unemployment rate in Ontario is down slightly but still at 9.2%. And while Pittsburgh's unemployment is better than the national average at 7.8 percent, the state of Pennsylvania is at 8.6 percent. And the epicenter of the financial crisis -- New York City -- experienced a 10.3% unemployment rate in August mostly due to all the layoffs on Wall Street.

So how can the Leafs, Penguins and Rangers justify their ticket price increases? They can't. Thankfully those three franchises don't reflect the whole picture of NHL ticket prices. The cost of admission overall stayed level at an average of $51.41 for non-premium seats -- only 0.3 percent higher than last season.

Still, even with NHL ticket prices stabilizing this year, it is still too expensive for many fans who are financially suffering right now.

So what is a poor puckhead to do? The options for watching games on television and the internet either got a whole lot better this year or will improve soon.

DirecTV dropped Versus in September due to a carriage dispute and so far there has been no progress in adding the channel, but hopefully this will change soon. However, Dish Network added Versus for three months and possibly longer. To demand DirecTV add Versus immediately call 1-800-531-5000. To thank Dish Network for adding Versus and ask them to make the channel permanent, call 1-888-686-2388.

All of this would change of course if Comcast, which owns Versus, buys NBC Universal from General Electric. The cable giant is close to a deal with GE to merge with the TV and movie studio. And according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Comcast is very interested in expanding their sports programming to compete with ESPN. A partnership with NBC would mean Versus would instantly up its game through NBC's NFL, NHL and Olympics coverage. Versus would no longer be seen as a niche channel but part of powerhouse NBC Sports. That means more hockey coverage and that also means Dish Network and DirecTV will be forced to carry Versus on basic cable. All great news for hockey fans.

But right now the best option for hockey fans on a budget is NHL GameCenter Live on NHL.com. The website really upped their game this year, providing a great deal for twenty bucks a month or a one-time payment of $160.

NHL GameCenter Live offers all the out-of-market games not nationally televised on Versus or NBC. The best thing about the subscription is how portable it is -- you can log on from any computer with internet access anywhere in the world to watch games.

New features include an adaptive video option which automatically controls the bitrate of the video quality depending on the connection speed to prevent buffering and choppiness.

Also, DVR functionality offers the opportunity to rewind and fast forward by 10 seconds at a time to see that amazing goal again if you missed it. After replaying the game you can switch to live mode at any time.

The picture-in-picture function places another game within the frame of the larger game and multiview allows up to four games to be watched simultaneously.

Archived games are also available to watch so if you miss the game live you can check back the next day and watch it.

But perhaps the best feature is that it is commercial-free. NHL GameCenter Live does its best to cut off advertisements before they start airing so it is only the action on the ice that you get to see.

Viewers are certainly catching on as orders for NHL GameCenter Live are up 70 percent compared to last year at this time.

The National Hockey League lags behind baseball, football and basketball when it comes to television ratings and national attention, however, when it comes to ESPN The Magazine's seventh annual Ultimate Standings, the fastest sport in the world simply dominates.

Many hockey fans will be pleasantly surprised as they read the latest issue of "The Mag," which hit newsstands on July 13. That's because five of the top 10 teams are from the NHL out of 122 professional franchises ranked from the NHL, MLB, NFL and NBA.

The teams are ranked based on eight major categories -- wins vs. ticket prices, fan relations, ownership, stadium experience, players, coaching and championships won or soon to be won.

The Carolina Hurricanes (2), Detroit Red Wings (4), Washington Capitals (6), Pittsburgh Penguins (8) and St. Louis Blues (10) are the five teams in the top 10. The Anaheim Ducks are ranked 11th.

There are only two NHL teams in the bottom 10 -- the New York Islanders (115) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (120).

The Islanders should be able to reverse their fortunes by recently signing No. 1 draft pick John Tavares to a 3-year deal and starting construction soon on their new arena, dubbed "The Lighthouse Project."

As for long-suffering Leafs fans? Maybe new president and GM Brian Burke can help bring the team back to its glory days just like he brought a Stanley Cup to Anaheim as GM of the Ducks.

Getting to the playoffs would be a nice start. While the Leafs haven't won a Stanley Cup in 41 plus years, it's been four years since they skated into the postseason.

Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin nabbed two ESPY Awards nominations for Best Play and Best NHL Player. The nominations come as no surprise to hockey fans who have watched the Russian contortionist-on-ice score goals that would make even the The Flying Karamazov Brothers drop whatever they were juggling to drop their jaws.

However, some discerning fans might take issue with the play chosen. Ovechkin's goal against the Rangers was no doubt amazing -- he turned three New York defenders into human practice cones as he stick-handled around the helpless Blueshirts en-route to stuffing it past a stunned Henrik Lundqvist and into the back of the net. That the goal took place in the playoffs makes it even more special.

But in my mind Ovechkin's regular season goal against Montreal was even more spectacular and should have been chosen as the Best Play. While the Habs were moving the puck out of their zone and into the neutral zone, Ovechkin took advantage of a quick line change, raced across the ice, bounced the puck off the boards to himself, charged towards the Montreal net while being chased and eventually pulled down by a late-arriving defender, then while sliding on the side of his back he somehow kept control of the puck and somehow found an opening to shoot the puck past the goalie.

Here are the two plays. You decide:

Nominated goal against Rangers:



Montreal goal:



The ESPY Awards will be broadcast Sunday, July 19 at 9 p.m. EST (6 p.m. PST) on ESPN. The winners are determined by fan vote. To cast your ballot go to ESPYS.tv.