A Chocolate Fountain Would Be Nice

So for hockey fans, the summer can be a long, boring, exercise in frustration, counting down the hot, humid days until training camp opens.  Oh sure, there’s the draft and UFA signing day and maybe even a few contracts that try to circumvent the CBA.  But you have to guess that even NHL officials get a little stir crazy, waiting for the players to hit the ice.

For example I have this image of  Gary “The Ladies Man” Bettman, your favorite NHL official, sitting on his porch over looking Cayuga Lake, sipping some Courvoisier, listening to Kenny G, the sun setting over the lake, pondering how he can attract more female fans to the NHL.  We have a great game but with Sarah Palin and her league of lipstick wearing, hockey moms ripe for the picking, I have got to capitalize on this.

Yes my fellow, female hockey fans, Gary Bettman and his illustrious associates in the NHL are reaching to us women to make hockey fun for us.  So what has The Ladies Man done to improve our NHL game experience?

Added more stalls in the ladies rooms at NHL arenas? – NO
Allowed players to be interviewed in the locker room in towels like before? – NO DAMMIT
Installed chocolate fountains at all NHL concession stands? – Yum but NO

The NHL has designed a line of hockey jerseys for YOU the lady fans.  And to be honest, I wouldn’t shred it and use it as cat litter.  Photo courtesy of Greg Wyshynski at Puck Daddy.

Seriously, I don’t know where the NHL gets their merchandise and I sure as hell don’t know what kind of woman sits in a focus group and says, “Oh I like that one. You betcha!”  But I have yet to find a hockey lovin’ woman who has anything nice to say about these monstrosities.

I don’t need a bedazzler or satin trim or special colors on my jersey.  Call me old fashioned, but I like my jerseys the old fashioned way, boxy, large enough to wear as a nightshirt, in my team’s colors with my favorite player’s name on my back.  (Excuse my poor photography.)

Now I have a line in my last will and testament stating that I will be buried in my Stars jersey, but if I had to wear one of these bedazzled jerseys, I’d probably die of embarrassment or be killed by one of my sister hockey fans.  Women have been buying and wearing sports jerseys for years without dog collars around the neck.  Just because I have ovaries and breast, I don’t need any special jeweled, logo merchandise.  I don’t even ask you for more restrooms Mr. Bettman.  What I ask from the NHL is that they treat me like the knowledgeable hockey fan that I am.

You have a great game Gary.  Quit screwing with it.  I don’t need bedazzled jerseys to buy more merchandise.  I don’t even need players in towels to watch more games.  What I need is improved TV coverage of your games.  What I need is more consistency with the wheel of fortune on discipline.  What I need is for Tom Hicks to sell the Stars so Joe Nieuwendyk can be a real GM.  What I need is for my Stars to make the playoffs.

So you can put the bedazzler down.  Drink some more Courvoisier and come up with some kind of acid washed jersey for our male fans or ball caps with built-in mullets.  I’ll keep rockin’ my Stars jersey old school style.

But a chocolate fountain would be nice.