Lockouts looming; NHL looking good

With the end of the NFL season near, and the joke of a league that the NBA has become to watch, people need to start watching the NHL.

What I mean by “joke of a league to watch” is that the NBA isn’t fun to watch anymore. You don’t see team play anymore, outside shooting has become irrelevant, and defense only shows up during the playoffs. Now there are exceptions to this, Rajon Rondo, Chris Paul and Deron Williams are old school type point guards who have a pass first thought mentality. The Orlando Magic rely heavily on three point shots.

The NHL on the other hand I feel hasn’t gotten a fair shot, with viewers. After the lockout in 2004-2005, many people gave up on the NHL and only the real fans stuck with the sport. But what people don’t realize is that the amount of skill that the NHL has right now. I am talking all-time great players that are in the league right now. Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Toews are just a few of the young guns in the NHL today. Not to mention the high level of play by older players such as Chris Pronger, Nicklas Lidstrom and until this season Martin Brodeur.

Ice hockey is also by far the greatest game to watch. Baseball is boring to watch, football has too much stopping, and not enough playing and well, you know how I feel about the NBA. Ice hockey is fast paced, hard hitting, and played in arenas where fans are literally on the boards.

If you have ever been to a hockey game, it blows any other sport out of the water. I have been to hundreds of MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL games, and nothing beats the atmosphere at a hockey game.

It’s the players that make fans want to watch, and I still cannot understand why people don’t like to watch the NHL. Wayne Gretzky, who is the greatest man to ever lace up the skates, was quoted as saying that he fears his records could be broken by Sidney Crosby. You know Crosby the guy that plays on the Pittsburgh Penguins who is having a career year and is on pace the put up numbers that haven’t been seen since Gretzky and Mario Lemieux laced up the skates in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

Crosby and Ovechkin are our generations Gretzky and Lemieux, I am talking G.O.A.T (greatest of all-time) players in front of our own eyes, and no one wants to watch. The one player in the NBA that you can look at right now and say NBA all time great is Kobe. LeBron James could have been but he decided to “take his talents to South Beach.”

You might also want to start watching the NHL, because next season there might not be an NFL or NBA to watch.