The Hockey Stop

Forget football. Spring is the best season for sports fans. We just wrapped up the most exciting March Madness in recent memory (thanks VCU and Butler) and now we have the NHL and NBA playoffs to look forward to. Plus, MLB baseball and MLS soccer have started up.

So, while the NFL heads to court tomorrow, there are so many reminders of how blessed we are as Americans to be able to enjoy so many other professional sports that aren't currently going through a labor dispute. Here in Washington, the city is buzzing about the Capitals' chance at playoff redemption. In Baltimore they are going batty over the undefeated Orioles. In Denver they love their defending MLS champion Colorado Rapids. And in Los Angeles they are dreaming of another NBA championship for their Lakers.

The trees are blooming. The weather is warmer. The grass is greener. And we have hockey, basketball, baseball and soccer all at the same time. Sorry, football, but we are moving on.

The National Hockey League and every other professional sports league that has played second fiddle to the National Football League will benefit from a canceled season. In addition to the NHL, other leagues that will surely gain more media and fan attention will be Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association (although they have lockout concerns of their own coming up), Major League Soccer and NASCAR.

There are also many fans who will simply give up the couch on Sundays and discover other activities like going for a bike ride, visiting a museum or attending church.

I believe I've seen a preview of this already here in Washington. There are still many misguided people who cling to the Washington football franchise (I will not publish what I believe to be the racist name of the team) and will probably still be wearing Burgundy and Gold hats and jackets even if the season is lost. However, I've seen an increase in Washington football team fans at the Verizon Center cheering on the Capitals this season. Expect attendance and TV ratings to increase at hockey arenas across the country as disgruntled football fans discover other ways to spend their hard-earned money.

While all other sports will benefit from an NFL work stoppage, the NHL in particular is poised to bring in a lot of new fans. That's because hockey most closely matches the team physicality of the NFL. Those fans missing QB sacks and hard-nosed tackles will enjoy the intense body checks and fighting in hockey.

And as far as the economic factor is concerned, the money not spent at NFL stadiums and on NFL merchandise will be redistributed to other sectors of the economy.

So for all those Washington football team fans, ditch the R******s and instead Rock the Red at a Caps game!

Reports have been swirling the past couple of days that Google is in talks with the NBA and NHL about streaming live games on its popular YouTube viral video service. Even though the NHL is denying negotiations with Google about this, and the NBA is saying this would only be for their Asian market, this is still big news and it is a near certainty that at some point in the future professional sports games will be available on YouTube.

This move could be a game changer because it would pose a direct threat to lucrative cable television contracts the leagues have -- the NHL with Versus and the NBA with TNT and ESPN. With the integration of the PC and TV getting closer to reality all the time, there is a real chance showing live streaming games on YouTube could siphon viewers -- and ad revenue -- away from traditional cable channels, especially if your Internet is hooked up to a big flat screen TV and is streamed in HD quality.

Also, streaming live games on YouTube could make blackout rules in media markets irrelevant. Your home team's game might be blacked out on Versus because Comcast has exclusive rights, but then you can just surf over to the YouTube website and watch the game there instead of paying extra for Comcast. However, it is possible to black out local games on the Internet, as the NHL's online subscription package Gamecenter Live and the NBA's League Pass both do.

Regardless, this developing story is yet another example of the couch and the computer coming together. Stay tuned as the Internet revolution continues its invasion of living rooms around the world.

Washington Capitals and Wizards owner Ted Leonsis is perhaps the model for how to turn around the fortunes of a franchise through the draft and brilliant marketing. The jovial Greek American from Brooklyn went from humble origins to becoming a senior AOL executive and later a professional sports owner. He answers every email, blogs every day on Ted's Take, made the Verizon Center the rockingest and reddest place in Washington, D.C., and most recently moved the Wizards' training camp from Richmond, Virginia, to the George Mason University campus in Fairfax where last Tuesday at approximately 12:01 a.m. the team held the first ever NBA Midnight Madness event at the Patriot Center.

So with all his success both personally and professionally, a gaffe here and there is no big deal. When Leonsis told a reporter at the Patriot Center that the move to Fairfax and the Midnight Madness event were designed to lure more fans from Northern Virginia because that is the team's base, it might have riled residents of the District and Maryland. But no big deal. Fans in Maryland and D.C. will forget those comments the second after No. 1 draft pick John Wall steps onto the court for the first time.

But when on Wednesday Leonsis told a group of Northern Virginia business leaders at a breakfast event on the GMU campus that he expected the NBA will soon have a hard salary cap similar to the NHL's model, well that wasn't taken lightly by the league office and commissioner David Stern, who fined Leonsis $100,000 for the comments.

From the AP story:

"NBA commissioner David Stern said that's not necessarily true -- and the NBA fined Leonsis $100,000 for 'unauthorized public comments regarding the league's collective bargaining negotiations.'

"We're negotiating and that was one of our negotiating points," Stern told The Associated Press, "but collective bargaining is a negotiating process, and that was not something that Ted was authorized to say and he will be dealt with for that lapse in judgment."

But does Leonsis have a point about the salary cap?

In my view, he is absolutely correct that the NBA needs a hard cap similar to the NHL. Professional hockey has never been more competitive and the parity is stunning. Any team can beat any team on any night and that is great for the game and even better for the fans. It is why a smaller market such as Pittsburgh has just as much of a shot as New York.

The LeBron James fiasco is a great example of how smaller markets suffer with no hard cap. Cleveland simply did not have the money to build a championship-caliber team around James and the rest is history -- James went to cash-rich Miami to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and probably get some rings.

Now let's say Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Henrik Sedin all signed with the New York Rangers when they entered into free agency because there was no hard cap and Gotham had all the dough.

That wouldn't be very fair now would it?

Kudos to Leonsis for speaking the hard truth about the NBA's need for a hard salary cap.

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.