Your "hockey" article perplexes me. You seem to mention everything that is good about the sport and nothing bad other than your favorite team losing. The title of your article should have been "You Almost Had Me, Bruins". Please don't indict the entire game just because your team lost.

In the second round of this year's playoffs, the most beloved sports team of my entire life, the New York Rangers, lost in five games to the explosive Pittsburgh Penguins. It was a great series to watch, but in the end I must admit the superior team prevailed. Do I hold that against the game of hockey? Of course not. Guess what I did tonight. I watched Game Two of the Penguins-Flyers series at some bar on the Sunset Strip. Why? Because I love the game. I love the speed, the intensity, the skill (pretty much everything you mentioned in your article), and the Penguins and Flyers offer two of the best examples of all these things. Now I'm supporting the very team that eliminated my team from contention because I feel they are the most deserving. I must say; you're missing out. There was blood dripping onto the ice within the first five minutes, a brutal fight, a contested goal, a breakaway goal, and much more. Is all that really worth missing out on just because your team isn't in it? Not for me. Not for the true hockey fan.

Don't even get me started on the BBWS (Boston Bandwagon Syndrome) your article seemed to be dripping of. I would be sick to my stomach if the B's somehow managed to win the Cup and I had to watch a Stanley Cup parade down the Charles River on Duck boats with a bunch of 18-year-old female college students lining the streets. The Celtics alone are enough to make me want to shoot myself in the temple. All I can say is thank God for Super Bowl XLII.

Anyway, back to hockey. In all honesty, your article gave me some hope that the game of hockey can rekindle its relationship with American sports fans. The game just needs more people like you willing to give it a chance. Who really cares if your home team is winning or losing? Chances are you're watching an incredible spectacle regardless. Does your team's poor performance or absence from a game entirely prevent you from enjoying a good baseball or football game? It certainly shouldn't if you truly love the game itself.

Then again, as ESPN's #1 Hockey fan, John Buccigross so aptly put it, I really couldn't care less how many more fans the NHL attracts. Hockey is a niche sport, and the fewer people who watch the game, the fewer people who reduce it to its most basic level and the fewer people who fail to see the beauty in the game's simplicity, the better off I am as a passionate fan. American sports fans seem to think a sport is better off the more fans it attracts and the higher ratings it receives. Really? Is the NBA really better off being billed every night as another LeBron vs. Kobe, LeBron vs. Wade, LeBron vs. Arenas, etc? A sport that once epitomized team play has been reduced to a one-man freakshow night after night to attract base level fans and advertisers alike. I'll take the quiet, dignified world of hockey, where fans are not the lowest common denominator but respected members of the sport's community.

You're welcome to join if you like.

Sincerely,
LA's biggest Rangers fan, Rich