The National Hockey League has canceled its season over a labor dispute, and the big question is: Who cares?

The wealthy players probably care. The NHL pulled in a whopping $2.1 billion in its last full season, with more than 75 percent of the gross receipts paid out to players. That kind of math doesn't compute in the corporate world, which means team owners have been crying the blues about losing money for years.

A lot of fans probably care. Professional hockey has attracted 20 million fans a year in each of the past four seasons, despite steadily rising ticket prices that, in many cases, priced fans out of watching live games.

But the sad truth is that beyond those folks, not many people care. Of the four major pro sports in America - football, baseball, basketball and hockey - hockey is a distant fourth in drawing crowds.

The problem is mostly visual. Hockey is not much of a television sport. In fact, the major networks pretty much stay away from long-term contracts for showing hockey games. Why would they do otherwise when ESPN has more viewers watching last year's World Series of Poker than are watching last night's hockey game?

You probably can count on one hand the number of non-hockey crazies who were even aware that there had been an NHL lockout for the past five months, with failed negotiations for a new contract going back more than a year.

The average American has just never really taken a liking to pro hockey, in part because of its incredible, mindless violence. At least in pro football, the referees toss a flag on flagrant fouls. In hockey, too often the refs just cross their arms and skate around the arena while two players bloody each other.

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Hockey, especially at the amateur level, is an exciting, demanding sport. The NHL somehow lost sight of that.

Feb. 18, 2005