There is still plenty of good hockey to be seen.
By: Steve Feitl
Allow me a morbid analogy.
Imagine you are in the unfortunate situation where you must bury a loved one. You attend the services, pay your last respects and depart knowing your loved one was given a proper burial.
Then three days later, you visit the grave, only to find that your loved one’s casket has been dug up. If this upsetting revelation is not bad enough, you find that it’s been done for no reason and the whole process is repeated unnecessarily.
That would undoubtedly be a traumatic experience. Take that scenario and enter it into the spectrum of the sports world and you understand the plight of the ice hockey fan.
Last week, the National Hockey League canceled its season Feb. 16, only to essentially cancel it again three days later. Commissioner Gary Bettman blames the NHL Players Association. The NHLPA blames the owners. Both sides blame ESPN for overstating the negotiations that took place Saturday. Personally, I blame them all.
But ultimately, what does it matter? Unless someone has created a fantasy labor dispute league (or as I call, "Get Rich Quick Scheme No. 616"), there’s no reason to care. Whichever side comes out on top in this work stoppage still won’t look good because there will be no NHL this season.
In fact, we’ll be lucky to see next season start in the fall. For a hockey fan like myself, this is really troubling. I am not a fan of basketball and we currently find ourselves in the dreaded lull between the football and baseball seasons. Forgive me if I can’t get excited over batting practice statistics.
I realize I’m in the minority here after all, finding hockey fans south of the Great Lakes is like finding Democrats in the central United States. But there is hope for the strange tribe to which hockey fans belong. We can’t go to a NHL game, but we can still see live hockey.
Just down the road is the minor league hockey franchise, the Trenton Titans. This East Coast Hockey League team puts on a great show for its fans and will be home for nine more games at Sovereign Bank Arena over the next seven weeks. In fact, the Titans will be home at 7 p.m. this Saturday to face North Division foe, the Dayton Bombers.
Or for a different experience, you can check out the Princeton University women’s hockey team. This collegiate squad will play twice at Baker Rink this weekend against Union, as it prepares itself for the Eastern College Athletic Conference playoffs in early March. The puck drops at 7 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m. Saturday. The matinee will be a promotional game with "broomball" in between periods and a chance for youth hockey players to skate with the Tigers after the game.
Speaking of youth hockey, it might be the easiest way to get a taste of the sport. With a wealth of recreational and travel teams in the area, it’s likely that you know someone that has a child who would love a personal cheering section at one of his or her games.
Supporting hockey at those various levels might help grow the fan base for the exciting, but often neglected sport. We certainly can’t count on the NHL to do it.
Steve Feitl is the managing editor of The Lawrence Ledger. He can be reached here.

