Or “What On Earth Is Happening?”

This was my second exposure to American professional sports, Detroit Redwings versus Calgary Flames in the National Hockey League (perhaps that should be International, given the protagonists). It followed on from my evening a few months back watching the Detroit Pistons basketball team get beaten by the Denver Golden Nuggets.

You have to understand that I grew up in the UK, where professional sport doesn’t, or at least didn’t, attract the kind of money that American sports do. Football (Association Football to the uninitiated) was the only popular professional sport with mass appeal, and there wasn’t the money in the game that there is now. Ninety-two professional league clubs across four divisions in England, and players in the lower leagues were earning pretty poor money. I mention this because there was never seen to be the need to invent reasons to generate income. Gate receipts and advertising were the key income generators, and while gimmicks were tried, they never came close to changing the weekly trek to watch your local side play, and it was good on-field performances that sold more tickets, not dancing girls, blokes playing organs, or giant video screens. Indeed, military bands appeared to be the chief entertainment, pre-match and at half time, although there was a bloke at Arsenal who used to sing “Born Free” every week.

But I’m not really a rube and I am aware of the amazing amount of money that swills around American professional sport, and the super-human efforts made all the time to do stuff that increases the money flow. I’m also aware that the average sports fan here has so much sport to choose from, even if they only follow, say, two teams, that they have lost much of the tribal instincts of watching their home team (there are not that many “Home Town Teams” now, just big teams in big cities), and don’t have much of an attention span as a result. I pitched up at the Little Caesar’s Arena in downtown Detroit expecting the game, Redwings versus Flames, to be only part of the evening’s offering, and I was right.

The Arena is modern and well stocked with food and drink places, and there are “Merch” shops everywhere, so no surprise there. Inside the Arena, though, it’s just non-stop attention-grabbing. Music, light shows, videos on the big screens, competitions, and even a bloke playing an organ. I think we were spared too much of a floor show given that the floor was made of ice and not only would be dangerous to dance upon, but it needed constant attention to smooth it out with not just the famous “Zamboni” ice smoothing machines, but fleets of enthusiastic young things on skates, armed with big snow shovels.

Hockey is a fast and furious game where they play three twenty-minute periods and swap players on and off the ice, two or three at a time, every few minutes. When the music stopped and the play began, it was relatively quite inside the arena. People were watching fairly closely as there were a few “Ooohs” and “Aaaahs” as the action developed. Two minutes in and the home team scored, cue massive amounts of noise, horns blaring and lights flashing, which was all good stuff. Then I noticed that at every “Face Off”, when the play stopped, in came the music, the video screens lit up and we were visually and audibly assaulted for the next twenty seconds or so, until play resumed.

At the period breaks, people headed out to restock on Pizza, beer and whatever else they needed, while the music kept up and video screens were busy. We had a pair of shouting comperes in between all the fun and games, and it only really settled down when the hockey started up again.

It was a good night for the home team as the goals rattled in, but I noticed that people were losing their attention to the play, myself included. Every break in play and we were back to that assault again with the music and the videos. In the final period, there were so many breaks in play that I kind of lost interest all together. I did see the the final goal (6-2 the eventual score) go in, but the delay between that and the fans cheering led me to realise that they had only been alerted to the goal by the horns sounding. That, I guess, is what happens when there so many other distractions.

It was definitely a better evening for sport than the basketball, and that I reckon was down to the limited use of the ice and the lack of a floor show. The seats were cheap enough (US$40 for a centre-ice seat), even if the beer was very pricey. I bought some merch and listened to the crazy drum band, and actually had a good time. But for an Englishman who likes to watch the sport, I was left somewhat disappointed. I don’t like to have my attention dragged away, but even the most laser focused people would not have been able to concentrate on the game after two hours of assault and battery. Give me ninety minutes of football any day, where breaks in play are not rewarded with crashing music and light shows, and I can come away at the end of the game remembering much of the play.

Still, when in Rome and all that. I’d imagine if I go to see games often enough, I’ll get used to everything and maybe I’ll be able to zone it out and watch the damned sport!