At its heart, the NHL is in the entertainment business. And these days, that can be a tough business to be in. There's more competition for our attention and our dollars than ever before, and it's getting increasingly difficult to appeal to younger fans who may not have grown up with the game the way their parents and grandparents did.
The shifting interests of the younger generation, who increasingly prefer the quicker pace and instant gratification of video games, has become a league-wide problem. The NHL can't survive without the younger demographic, and right now that potential fan base often doesn't seem to like what it sees from the league.
Luckily, the NHL has a plan. Sources tell me that the league is already working on several initiatives to lure video game fans back to the NHL product. Here's the full list:
- Every game, one lucky fan gets to carjack the Zamboni and back over the driver.
- To make online gamers feel at home, replace traditional play-by-play announcers with racist and homophobic twelve-year-olds who apparently have no parents.
- Four words: Rock Band Brass Bonanza.
- Replace the shoot-out with an actual shoot-out.
- Stop referring to Maple Leafs penalty killers as “hesitant,” “slow,” or “lethargic.” Begin referring to them as “laggy.”
- During post-game interviews, encourage players to whine dramatically about the burden of avenging their dead fathers.
- All fights will now be preceded by a glass-breaking effect, for some reason.
- Players will no longer be suspended for touching off full-scale brawls by leaping off of the bench and charging wildly into a melee—as long as they remember to yell “Leeroy Jenkins” first.
- All games will now feature background music. Seven seconds of background music. Repeated over, and over, and over.
- At the end of every season, the Art Ross winner has thirty seconds to sign his initials on the high-score board.
- To make the television broadcasts look more like a sports video game, all fans will be encouraged to dress alike, be heavily pixelated, and constantly stand up and awkwardly wave their arms around for no reason.
- Bettman: Arkham City.
- Instead of a final buzzer, every game will now end with a brief cut-scene, classical music, and seventeen minutes of scrolling Japanese names.
- Hit the reset button on the entire league and reload the saved game from 1994.