Less is more.

For the past three years, New Year’s Day has presented sports fans with an outdoor NHL game.  Strategically named the Winter Classic, this New Year’s Day tradition had National Hockey League fans anxiously awaiting the first drop of the puck in 2010. This year’s Winter Classic took the stage of historic Fenway Park, pitting the Boston Bruins against the Philadelphia Flyers. It created a region-wide buzz for both this extraordinary happening in the Boston sports world, and more importantly, hockey.  The success and popularity of the Winter Classic can be measured by its obvious marketing success.

The “Bridgestone” Winter Classic was ripe with sponsors and advertisers who jumped at a chance to cash in on the rarity of the event.  However, it is entirely too possible that, as the ice melts into the familiar Fenway basepaths, the short term gains by hockey and businesses will remain just what the event itself was: a quick hit. There is an underlying and important lesson to be learned from the Winter Classic that could play savior to professional hockey.

One must consider why the Winter Classic was such a success. The answer is simple: rarity.  The game took place on an epic stage, teeming with publicity, history and tangible implications. The event created visibly giddy expectations across the New England region. This buzz surely included opponent Philadelphia’s territory and spread throughout the sporting world.  The anticipation of the game lead to its success. Players were nervous and visibly emotional. Their humanity carried over into their play; it was clearly not just another day at the office. The games rarity translated directly into quality. For the first time, the NHL resembled the NFL.

Football has had it right for years: one game a week. There’s more then enough time between games for the crucial ingredients of popular sport to simmer to perfection.  The days between NFL games are spent in anticipation. In-depth analysis, player interviews, trash talk, predictions, forecasts…Sunday cant come soon enough. Even the lay sports fan can attest to the “special” nature of the illusive Monday Night Football game, while the die-hard won’t even speak the words ‘bye-week’. The rarity of NFL games, 16 a team, cultivates an all-important  sense of anticpation and appreciation in the fan base.

Consider the 82 game NHL regular season. What if it were 50? As proven in football, fewer games equates to greater importance, rarity and, for the business-world, less but more expensive advertisement slots. Competition increases in all aspects of the game. Players hit harder and tickets are harder to find.  Time between games allows for deeper team analysis and the exposure of  player personalities, an element  of sport  long forgotten by hockey.

A schedule cut would be a worthwhile investment by hockey. What does the NHL have to lose? A sport whose scores and highlights rarely ever appear on the 24 hour sports giant ESPN, hockey is well beyond the general American consciousness. The initial financial dip, unavoidable when cutting 32 games of ticket sales and concessions, may be worth while to transform the dying sport.

The National Hockey League is moving in the right direction with the Winter Classic. The next step is to learn from football, America’s most popular sport, that less is more.

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