finesse, team play, amazing athleticism, worldwide international appeal, and the possibility for the average guy to excel at the sport, with enough commitment to making oneself a good player. And, every goal, and even shot on goal means something, as opposed to basketball, where individual buckets don't mean a lot until the final few minutes, and only then if it's the score is close. Diddo, to some degree with football. Plus, you watch players in basketball and other sports take rests while they're on the field of play, posting up or parking on the perimeter - not so for hockey - going 100% almost all the time - these guys are top notch athletes, and the most conditioned of any sport, IMO.

And I love it that you don't necessarily have to be "genetically gifted" as far as height to weight ratios to invent yourself into a hockey star, as seems to largely be the case with basketball and football. (Although for hockey it might seem as if you do need to be genetically capable of growing facial hair.) But, joking aside, it's great that a guy who is 5'9'' and a buck 88 (like Marchessault on the Knights), and puts in the time to be the best hockey player he can be, can be the star of his team, not to mention scrawny Gretzky, the most dominating sports figure in history, IMO.

And as far as team play, Hockey also wins over basketball or football. In either BB or FB, teams are often set up to run most plays through a select few or even one player as the focus, whereas in hockey, you'll never win just by feeding one guy the rock. And, because so few points are scored, both offensive and defensive skills are important for every player, as opposed to BB and FB where a team can focus more on being one-dimensional to some degree - outscoring the other team, or in shutting them down. This is not 100% true, but at least to more of a degree than in hockey, where the O and D balance becomes more vital with scores of 3-2.

That all being said, I think the NHL is stupid for not doing things that could bring hockey to more US TV eyeballs, and therefore more exposure and money, more visibility, and more young players taking up the sport. There are 3 things they could easily do that would revolutionalize hockey, and they are:

1. Stop trying to compete with the "already established" NBA for playoff viewership!! You're never going to win that battle in the US. You've got to more creative. Start the hockey season earlier, so that at least the early hockey playoff rounds fall between March Madness, and the NBA playoffs. Then, when people have nothing else to watch, they'll get hooked on amazing playoff hockey, and even possibly choose the hockey final four or final two over boring early rounds of the NBA playoffs.

2. Widen the nets, and make the goalposts angled inwards, so that more goals are scored overall, including the ones that ding off the posts. People, especially hockey novices are more likely to be entertained by more 8-6 games than 1-0 games. It's just a fact. Not that we want to go to 90-100 points or even 30-50 per game, as that waters down the impact of points, but a little more action would increase viewers, plain and simple. A 2 on 1 would immediately become more exciting with a slightly bigger net to look at.

3. Create a "key" in front of the net like basketball (5 seconds = face off outside blue line), so that teams can't resort to the common playoff strategy of just parking the biggest guy on the team 5 feet in front of the goalie to not only screen, but to wait for some lucky bounce / deflection. I don't want my team to win 2-1 on some lucky bounce or deflection, or to loose that way. Rather, I want them to win by great stick-handling, passing, and finesse, as well as speed, for more one-timers and nifty plays, or even out-muscelling in the corner for a centering pass. If a team then wins 8-4, it's because they're clearly the better team, and deserve to win. But, winning 2-1 can far too often just be from a lucky bounce here or there.

Long live Hockey - the greatest sport on the planet!