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dailycardinal.com/sports
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Men’s Basketball
Emotional game against Iowa awaits UW seniors Hughes, Bohannon to play final game at Kohl Center By Scott Kellogg THE DAILY CARDINAL
Senior guards Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon will lace ‘em up and run out onto the floor of the Kohl Center for the final time when
the Badgers face Iowa Wednesday on Senior Night. Players and coaches try to focus on the task at hand, but with the team facing a 4-12 (10-19 overall) Hawkeyes squad, some of the concentration will shift to the team’s two seniors. As Bohannon gears up for his final home game as a Badger, he reflected on his time at Wisconsin and had nothing but good things to say about his experience.
JUSTIN STEPHANI/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO
Trevon Hughes and the Badgers will try to block out the emotions of Senior Night when they face the sub-.500 Hawkeyes.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” Bohannon said. “I’ve been here for four years and done a lot of great things. Every time there was something negative it’s turned into a positive for us.” Bohannon and Hughes have been a part of a UW squad that has qualified for the NCAA Tournament their first three years and won a Big Ten Championship in 2008. Now the two upperclassmen are the lone seniors on the men’s basketball team, and Bohannon said he has used that understanding to help his teammates. “You have more experience than anyone else on the floor,” Bohannon said. “And if you feel like you should do something somewhere, you might as well speak up.” The seniors’ teammates have appreciated Hughes and Bohannon’s time as Badgers and the guidance they have provided. Junior forward Keaton Nankivil said the two are not the loudest guys on the team, but still two players he looks up to. “They’ve done such a great job of leading our team this year. [Hughes] has played a very steady point, [Bohannon] just quietly does his thing,” Nankivil said. “A lot of it’s lead by example. They’re not vocal, get-in-your face people, but you can always count on them to set an example, play hard, do the right things, and so far it’s taken us a long way.” No matter how hard Wisconsin may want to look at tonight’s contest as just another game, associate head coach Greg Gard said he
ISABEL ÁLVAREZ/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO
Jason Bohannon will play his final game in the Kohl Center when Wisconsin plays Iowa Wednesday in the final home game of the season. knows there is a different sense on Senior Night. “There’s always the emotion of it,” Gard said. “I’m sure it’s special for them, and I know from a coaching standpoint it’s always emotional. It’s the last time you reflect on what they’ve done and how much they’ve benefited from being here and how much they’ve helped you and how you’ve seen them grow. I think that’s the neatest thing.” After the pre-game ceremony, Hughes and Bohannon will have to collect their emotions and manage to play a composed game against Iowa, something Gard said he believes they can do. “[Past seniors] always have
really handled it pretty well. They understand that this is just another phase,” Gard said. “Once the ball gets tipped up and we get going a little bit, then we can just play.” Once the contest does end, Hughes and Bohannon will never step into the Kohl Center to play in a game for the Badgers again, and then it will be time to completely reflect on their careers. Bohannon said, when looking back at his time at UW, he’ll remember multiple parts of the surrounding experience that made his time here special. “Fans, teammates, coaching staff, everything,” Bohannon said. “You can’t really label one thing as being the best thing, it’s the combination of everything that makes it great.”
More international tournaments the key to hockey’s popularity SCOTT KELLOGG the cereal box
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ever in my life can I remember so much focus from the sports world on hockey than during the Vancouver Olympics. I was completely hooked, leaving games on in my apartment whenever I was home, whether it be the preliminary round or the goldmedal game. People I knew, who ranged from casual hockey fans to apathetic ones, became invested. The national media turned its focus away from college basketball, the NBA and the NFL offseason to the U.S.-Canada gold-medal game. The sport could not have asked for a better showcase. After the dust settled, analysts everywhere debated whether or not the sport could sustain the success of the tournament and transfer it to the NHL. Hockeyspecific writers are optimistic, believing their favorite sport now has enough attention to affect the NHL’s popularity. More general pundits say once the buzz wears off the NHL will go back to relative oblivion and return to the proverbial backseat behind the other major sports.
The latter group is correct. The sport could not have asked for a better tournament, but after the 2006 Olympic Games, and even following the 2002 Games that also featured a U.S.-Canada final game, we never saw a residual effect strong enough to create a long-term impact on the sport. But I can’t let it go that easily. After such an amazing event, we know there is potential for the sport to succeed in some capacity. I can’t accept simply allowing the sport to succumb to a poorly-run league and wait another four years for another Olympic hockey experience (if there even is one, with the NHL unlikely to pause its regular season for the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia).
The national media turned its focus away from college basketball, the NBA and the NFL offseason to the U.S.Canada gold-medal game
There is a solution out there— way out there. What I’ve seen the past couple weeks is a sport that struggles in its primary domestic league but thrives in international play. So what is needed is a com-
plete overhaul of hockey’s landscape—to shift the sport’s base from the NHL to the world. The sport doesn’t need to abolish the NHL, it just needs to shorten the season and emphasize international play with more events. To accomplish this, hockey can use soccer as a model. The MLS season lasts 30 games. The Premier League in England plays 38 games in a season. The NHL’s 82 games are way too many to begin with. The league should cut its season in half and downsize the playoffs from 16 teams to eight. It can spread out the games more and still chop two months off of the season. A greater value on each game may even increase interest and revenue in the long run. Even with a shortened NHL season, the Winter Olympics will still probably cut into it. So let’s let Commissioner Gary Bettman have his wish and continue the NHL during the Olympics. If players still desire, they can ditch their teams for a couple of weeks to represent their country (Alex Ovechkin and Patrick Kane already declared they’d do so if the season does not stop for the 2014 Games). The Olympic tournament would not carry the same gusto as before, but with a handful of NHL
players and the intensity international hockey carries, it would still be must-see television.
The sport doesn’t need to abolish the NHL, it just needs to shorten the season and emphasize international play.
Then, just as soccer does, hockey should adopt a World Cup as the hallmark event of the sport. Hold it in November just before the NHL season and throw 16 teams in there. Everyone could play in it, conflict-free. And without worrying about the NHL’s season, the event can hold more games and spread them out more. Then with a shortened and more spread-out NHL season, the NHL can throw its top four teams each year into the Champions Hockey League, playing against teams from Russia’s KHL and the Finnish and Czech domestic leagues, along with the best teams from the other top European leagues. The CHL has had its struggles and has actually been suspended for the 2009-’10 season, but the injection of four NHL teams into it each year would be all it would
need to get back on its feet. And taking one more page out of soccer’s book, throw in some international friendlies. The U.S.Canada rivalry is peaking, but who knows when the squads will meet again. Even without tournament implications, the thought of one or two U.S.-Canada games a year with both teams playing their best players is mouth-watering. Clearly, hockey in the United States is at its best when played at the international level, and anyone who watched the Olympics cannot argue with that. This sport is desperate for a popular resurgence, and one tournament every four years cannot do that. Making hockey an international sport and allowing fans in the United States to watch the best of the best play for their country against the likes of Canada, Russia, Sweden and Finland on a regular basis is the only way for this sport to flourish. Chances of all this happening? Not good. But Bettman and the league have to at least start somewhere on the international level in the near future if they have any hope for their sport, and the sooner the better. Should hockey put more emphasis on international tournaments or stick with the NHL? E-mail Scott at kellogg2@wisc.edu.