NHL whiffs on marketing one-timer

Longmou Li thinks Connor McDavid looks even faster this year. Li made this observation while watching the Edmonton Oilers captain sprint up the ice — blowing past a couple of flat-footed defenders in the process — and then beating goalie Mike Smith for his second of three goals in a 3-0 win against the Calgary Flames. “I’m impressed,” said Li. “I think his speed improved.”

Li wasn’t actually at the game. He wasn’t even in North America at the time. Along with about 100,000 other hockey fans, he was watching online in China.

“Before that goal, I thought Mike Smith was going to bring the Battle of Alberta more intense and more competitive,” Li, referencing the Flames goalie, said in a phone interview with Postmedia News. “But after McDavid’s second goal, you realize Mike Smith can’t do that. I think the Oilers are going to be even better this year.”

It’s refreshing to hear someone from China talk about whether McDavid got faster, whether the Battle of Alberta is back on or whether Smith might not be the saviour that Flames fans want him to be.

It’s a reminder that hockey exists outside of North America and Europe. But it’s also a reminder of the NHL’s missed opportunity in growing the game by refusing to send players to the 2018 Olympics in South Korea.

Li, who spent the past four years as a colour commentator for NHL games on Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, said there were about 100,000 online views for the Oilers’ game on Wednesday. A year ago, the number was closer to 30,000 for Edmonton’s opener against Calgary. The sport is growing in China, which the NHL partially recognized last month by staging a pair of exhibition games in Beijing and Shanghai.

The Olympics were a chance to keep the ball rolling and reach even more casual fans. Instead, at a time when the NHL arguably has its greatest collection of star players, only diehard fans are really paying attention.

“It’s a shame,” said Li, who aside from working as a part-time broadcaster is also the vice-president of communications for the KHL’s team in China. “It’s a big loss for Canada for sure. It’s a big loss for hockey. It’s a big loss for the IIHF, the Olympics, everyone.”

It’s the timing that hurts the most. This isn’t 2003-04, when the top scorers didn’t reach 50 goals or 100 points. The NHL is in a really good place right now, something that was evident on the opening night of the season.

There was McDavid’s one-man show in Edmonton and Wayne Simmonds also scoring a hat trick in the Flyers’ 5-3 win against the San Jose Sharks. There was the banner-raising in Pittsburgh, where Sidney Crosby scored his first of the year in a 5-4 overtime loss to St. Louis. And, of course, there was Toronto’s 7-2 blowout win against Winnipeg, in which the young (Auston Matthews had three points) and the old (Patrick Marleau had a pair of goals) put on an offensive clinic.

We could be embarking on a Golden Age for the NHL. There’s so much talent. And because the league is younger than it’s ever been, there’s so much potential.

On one hand, you have the old guard that includes Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Patrick Kane, who are still very much at the top of their game. On the other hand, you have so many young stars in McDavid, Matthews and Patrik Laine, who last season showed they are already among the best in the NHL.

The Olympics were a chance to showcase all that star power.

It was a chance to pit Canada’s McDavid against Team USA’s Matthews, who could be battling it out this year for the Art Ross Trophy. It was a chance to see Russia’s Ovechkin versus Finland’s Laine, who learned his one-timer by watching YouTube videos of the six-time Rocket Richard Trophy winner.

It could have been a confluence of the two generations, a chance to not only see Canada vie for a third straight gold medal, but for McDavid and Crosby to team up together in the same way that Wayne Gretzky played with Eric Lindros in the 1998 Olympics. We didn’t get to see that at last year’s World Cup of Hockey because McDavid, Matthews and many others were forced into playing on an under-24 team of Canadian- and American-born players.

A year later, the kids are not only good enough to represent their respective countries, but also lead the way. And yet, we will have to wait until the next World Cup or possibly the 2022 Olympics in Beijing to see it.

Of course, who knows what the rest of the league’s stars will look like by then?

“Oh, it’s very disappointing,” Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele, who certainly would have been in the mix for Canada’s Olympic roster, told Postmedia News in April. “You never know what’s going to happen. A guy like (Steven) Stamkos got hurt right before the last Olympics and would have been on the team again, but will miss another one. A lot can change in four years.”

For now, Li has Oct. 24 and Nov. 1 circled on his calendar. Barring a meeting in the Stanley Cup final, it’s the only chance he’ll get to see McDavid and Crosby on the same ice against each other this year.