Hockey - People Care?

So today, on the day of the announcement of a lockout, I’ve already read my first “no one’s going to notice” article, along with a sprinkle of “they’re already dead” and a nice helping of “the sooner the better”.  No need to link to that.

ESPN is running polls, as they love to do, and SportsNation has 10 questions about hockey.

To my surprise people are currently caring about the sport.  There are only a little under 3k votes right now, but if the current results are any indicator of the general sports public, people care a lot more than most media outlets would like to let on.

Current results:

1) Do you care if there is an NHL lockout?
66.4% Yes
33.6% No

2) Which do you feel would be better for the future of the NHL?
76.9% Salary cap
23.1% Luxury tax

3) When do you expect the NHL to resume play?
58.0% Next season
29.4% This season
12.5% It won’t

4) Who do you expect to make the most concessions when an agreement is reached?
67.0% Players
33.0% Owners

5) Is the NHL still a Big Four sport?
51.0% Yes
49.0% No

6) Which sport would you miss the most if it skipped a season?
66.2% NHL
20.2% PGA
8.9% NASCAR
4.7% MLS

7) Would the lack of an NHL season make you more likely to watch or attend an NBA game?
75.6% No
24.4% Yes

8) What is the NHL’s biggest popularity problem?
42.1% Fewer people grow up playing hockey
23.5% No problem, it’s just a niche sport
20.0% Expense of attending games
14.4% Doesn’t translate to television

9) Has Gary Bettman’s tenure as commissioner been generally good or bad for the NHL?
62.3% Bad
37.7% Good

10) Who is the best player in the game right now?
35.6% Jarome Iginla
35.6% Other
26.0% Peter Forsberg
2.9% Markus Naslund

Now, there’s still plenty of time left to gather votes, and some will say “all hockey sites will link to it”, which may be true - but small hockey websites can do very little to impact voting that is linked from the front page of espn.com.

I’ll update later on to see if there’s a swing in vote the longer it stays on the front of the site.

Update: One hour later, and it’s still on the front page, but not the main story anymore (it’s the secondary story, towards the top right).

The results have boomed in number, but outcome for “what matters” has changed little.

1) Do you care if there is an NHL lockout?

67.6% Yes
32.4% No

2) Which do you feel would be better for the future of the NHL?

77.2% Salary cap
22.8% Luxury tax

3) When do you expect the NHL to resume play?

57.1% Next season
29.3% This season
13.6% It won’t

4) Who do you expect to make the most concessions when an agreement is reached?

67.5% Players
32.5% Owners

5) Is the NHL still a Big Four sport?

51.4% Yes
48.6% No

6) Which sport would you miss the most if it skipped a season?

66.7% NHL
20.4% PGA
8.7% NASCAR
4.2% MLS

7) Would the lack of an NHL season make you more likely to watch or attend an NBA game?

76.9% No
23.1% Yes

8) What is the NHL’s biggest popularity problem?
41.0% Fewer people grow up playing hockey
24.0% No problem, it’s just a niche sport
19.7% Expense of attending games
15.3% Doesn’t translate to television

9) Has Gary Bettman’s tenure as commissioner been generally good or bad for the NHL?
62.6% Bad
37.4% Good

10) Who is the best player in the game right now?
35.4% Other
34.9% Jarome Iginla
26.5% Peter Forsberg
3.2% Markus Naslund

Total Votes: 6,563

Posted by David M Singer on Sep 15, 2004 at 02:09 PM

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