I don’t like it, not even one little bit.
I don’t like seeing Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs in gambling commercials.
Ditto for Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers and Wayne Gretzky.
And yet there they are.
McDavid and Matthews are arguably two of the best players in the National Hockey League, while Gretzky was one of the very best, ever.
Why are they doing gambling commercials? They don’t need the money.
McDavid earns $12.5 million (US) a season, Matthews $11.6 million (US).
The Wayner made many, many millions during his 20-year NHL career from hockey and commercials.
Maybe (probably) I’m old-fashioned, in that I think hockey should be watched because it’s hockey and the greatest sport on earth.
Do we really want hockey ‘fans’ gambling on who won which face-off, how many icings there are in the first period, who will fight each other, how many goals go through the five-hole? I don’t.
I guess gambling on who wins the game and by how many goals isn’t good enough.
People need to be able to bet in-game, between whistles or even when the play is on.
How many seconds can he carry the puck between blue lines before someone takes his head off?
Let’s bet on that?
Why? So the NHL can make more money and (supposedly) its teams can pay their players more money. As if.
It’s this whole idea that NHL hockey isn’t exciting enough, interesting enough, all-encompassing enough on its own to keep fans interested.
Like when the TV networks insist on showing the players walking to their dressing rooms, before the game, just to showcase the jaunty angle at which fashionable hats are being worn.
How about winning a round in the playoffs? Yes, a message to the Leafs. Show your style on the ice.
And these gambling (or gaming, as the softeners like to say) attitudes are starting to spread.
Very recently, while trying to watch game highlights on one of Canada’s two sports networks, I had to listen to a number of their ‘personalities’ tell us who gave the most reliable information on which bets could be placed.
I kid you not.
And they were talking about each other. It was just so much fun to watch, all the backslapping and buddy-buddy talk. I’m surprised arms weren’t broken from patting themselves on the back.
But it’s the same principle as tuning in for hockey game highlights and instead having to watch the ‘personalities’ tell bad jokes about themselves or, worse, tell us what they know.
Small sample size, I know, but there it is nonetheless.
Now what was I talking about? Oh yes, gambling on hockey and how it’s being sold as the next big thing.
It might be the next big thing, not only in hockey but in professional baseball, basketball, football, soccer, tennis, etc.
Because the message is these sports aren’t cool enough to be of interest unless you can place bets on the outcomes, and that isn’t just the final score.
In hockey it could be important stuff like whose helmet chinstrap is too loose to keep the bucket on his head during a violent collision into the boards? Or which goalie is going to be sent off the ice for wearing illegal, too-big equipment?
In baseball it could be fascinating stuff like which pitcher will balk first, sending that runner from second base to third?
In tennis it could be which player will smash his racquet to smithereens first after the umpire blows yet another call?
In football it could be who gets hurt badly enough that the stretcher is needed? (More likely he would just be dragged off the field, so as not to interrupt the fascinating ebb and flow of the game.)
Or in other words, nothing that is really important about the sport itself.
An argument can be made, I suppose, that there will be gambling on sports regardless, that these leagues might as well get in on the profits so that teams like the Arizona Coyotes, which draw about 5,000 people to their home games, don’t have to go belly up (or move to Quebec City, which should happen).
Anyway, I don’t like it.
You want to gamble, go find a casino. There are enough of them.
Same thing I tell people at the convenience store when I’m buying milk and have to wait for them as they play their lotto tickets.
Go gamble somewhere else.
Bob Bruton is a staff reporter at BarrieToday.
