It’s October 5. Hockey fans are foaming at the mouth like Cujo (the dog, not the goalie). The season is about to kick off with probably the two largest market teams, the Rangers and Flyers, doing battle in Philadelphia. Canadians everywhere are shotgunning Molsens and chasing them with shots of maple syrup. The sugar is making them twitch somewhat but they are trying to maintain a modicum of sanity. They strap into their recliners or pull the card table with the television on it closer to their ice fishing holes, ready to get back to their national pastime, ready to restore some semblance of order to an entire country that has been standing around scratching its head for a year and a half.

They flip on the television, set to ESPN already because that’s where hockey has lived for so long, since the days of the annoying Fox laser that followed the puck all over the place (I know it has a name but I’m not doing it the service of looking it up). They are confused upon finding not hockey, but a black man interviewing what appears to be a coach from a sport they refer to as bas-ket-ball. The man keeps saying “quite frankly” and appears to be very confident in his unabashed diatribes. Slightly confused, the Canadians know they have indeed seen African-Americans, or African-Canadians before. In fact, they’ve become quite prevalent (Donald Brashear, Jerome Iginla, Kevin Weekes, Anson Carter, Fred Brathwaite) in the NHL, but this particular person seems to speak in a dialect strange to hockey. It seems too urban. It seems too sinister. The Canadians panic. Phone lines light up and like good Samaritans, ESPN refers the millions of callers to the Outdoor Life Network, hockey’s new home thanks to a contract put in place by Comcast just a couple of days ago.

They frantically start heading north on their remote controls, entering into the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s on their respective cable dials. “Where is this channel?!!!?” they frantically scream. Until finally, the soothing sounds of Mike Emerick or Gary Thorne or Bill Clement float melodiously from the televisions with talk of scrums in the corner, backchecking, delayed penalties, zambonis and enforcers. Calm is restored to our tranquil neighbors in the north and the resurrection of hockey truly begins.

Many might be laughing at OLN taking over hockey coverage, but all jokes aside lets look at why this happened. Most major networks, being American based, can’t commit to hundreds of millions of dollars for a TV deal that will only get them ratings in about 5 or 6 major markets, leaving the rest of the country looking for re-runs of Leave it to Beaver. The fact is, no matter what hockey does to get back into the good graces of its fans and casual observers, they aren’t going to garner an influx of new constituents. At least, not right away. No matter how much better the product on the ice is, that kind of marketing and restitution takes time. And the even more glaring fact is, hockey may be the 4th major sport, but in terms of “national” attention, it is as far from number 3 as hell is from heaven.

Many in this country would argue that golf, (excuse me while I try and get this out) or soccer, or (excuse me while I throw up in my mouth a little before saying this) NASCAR should be higher profiled than hockey. Well, the last I checked, Hicks on Wheels has a major television network contract, and the networks duel for the rights to televise golf tournaments like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Soccer, sorry kids, is much too boring to ever allow a marketing campaign big enough to get regular network coverage. Golf may be too, but every white man in corporate America owns a set of clubs and envies the pros. The point is, hockey, although still considered one of the four major sports, has to earn its way back into the social consciousness, and it may be perfect that they will do it on OLN.

Comcast owns the Outdoor Life Network much as Disney owns ABC and ESPN. Comcast almost bought out Disney last year. With this move, plus the addition of the America’s Cup and the Tour de France, is it any doubt that Comcast is trying to position OLN as ESPN’s next big competitor? This kind of thing doesn’t happen overnight, but how hard would it be for OLN to get together a SportsCenter type show right now with all the talent in the various Comcast SportsNet outlets like Philly, Baltimore, Chicago and soon New York. So they have rodeos and flyfishing and the Buckmasters series, but so does ESPN depending on the time. They just do a better job of hiding them on 58 different versions of their network and sandwiching them in between 18 re-runs of the 11 p.m. SportsCenter every morning. For every baseball game you get at ESPN, you get just as many bowling matches, caught fish and motocross events.

Now OLN and Comcast has its hand in the big cookie jar, playing with a major that should come back as strong as it left due to a rabid fan base, and they got it for a steal. And if that still doesn’t do it for you, imagine the comedy of Peter Forsberg and Tie Domi doing promos for The World of Beretta starring former Major Dad commandant Gerald McRaney. Or, at the end of games, instead of having to hear Pat Summerall stumble through what crazy antics will follow on Malcolm in the Middle, you could here Bill Clement and Gary Thorne bang out this exchange:

Clement: “And following tonight’s key Atlantic Division matchup between the Flyers and Rangers, watch as Jackie Bushman and crew head north of the Catskills to tackle the ferocious white-tailed baby deer.”

(VIDEO HIGHLIGHT OF BUSHMAN SHOOTING DEFENSELESS ANIMAL IN THE BACKGROUND)

Thorne: “Looks like he shoots, he SCOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEEESSSSSSS!!!”