Hockey is back.
As a fan of a sport that’s been flying under the radar since the travesty that was the 2004-2005 lockout I’ve never felt better about the state of the NHL on a national level. I think the ratings and interest over all coast-to-coast will back me up on this.
However I live in a state that is fixated on college and high-school sports. Iowa in general has been hesitant to warm up to the coldest professional sport. We recently lost a high-quality AHL team after a protracted legal dispute that left them mothballed for over a year. No one seemed to care.
But things around here are changing. And I’ll give credit where I believe it’s due.
- The Winter Olympic Games
- The Chicago Blackhawks
Iowa seems invariably tied to the Windy City. When it’s hot in Chicago, people in here in the Hawkeye state (which incidentally is named after the same namesake as the Blackhawks) pay attention.
In my town of 3500 I’ve come across an occasional hockey fan, but with the Blackhawks Stanley Cup run, it seemed that everyone was paying attention. During our recent town-fest, I sported a Blackhawks sweater that I haven’t worn since high school. When I put it on I figured most people in town would think it was the Redskins. However, there were an unusually large number of comments about the NHL and in particular he Chicago Blackhawks. While the commentary was not particularly insightful or revealing, it was a big confidence booster for me that the game has fully-healed from the lockout, and it is penetrating markets that haven’t been interested in hockey for a long, long time. They have moved the sport to the front of the line here in Iowa over the past few weeks. As a hockey fan I applaud the Blackhawks for their Stanley Cup win and helping folks in rural Iowa get reacquainted with the best sport on earth.




Last night I was watching our local news station profile a growing trend in suburbia. Something called the "Village" concept. It's a planned community where homes are build in a neighborhood that features stores, services and housing all intermingled with each other.