The Finger Wag – Athletes using Twitter and Social Media to their Disadvantage

walsha

(Allan Walsh)

1st round of NHL playoffs draws highest US ratings since 2001. On 5:55 PM Apr 30th 2010 from Twitter for BlackBerry®

Finally.  No matter what you think of the NHL, hockey is an incredible sport.

But thanks to a lockout, overexpansion, and a commissioner that couldn’t run FEMA, the league has had an unnecessarily difficult struggle for relevancy.

Fortunately for sports, the true drama always shines through.  Last year’s playoff were amazing.  The young stars in the league– Crosby, Ovi, and this year’s star Halek– have renewed interest.

So now the NHL is setting new records despite being on Versus between reruns of the Professional Bull Riders league and the duck hunting dog competition.

The biggest factor this year was the storybook ending for Olympic hockey.  Sports just don’t get any better.

Or they couldn’t get any worse, after all…

“The benefits of going to the Olympics when you’re in Salt Lake City or Vancouver, to name two cities, are way different than if you’re in Japan, Italy or Russia…I’m not sure that that type of exposure warrants or overcomes the difficulties”  — Gary “The Business Handicap” Bettman — October 2009

Sigh.