NHL: Look to NASCAR

By Victor Chi

Mercury News

Last week we ran an item in the Buzz with a headline that read: NASCAR GETS IT; NHL DOESN'T.

Turns out that Philadelphia Flyers goalie Robert Esche agrees with us.

In discussing how the NHL can make itself more fan-friendly after the lockout, Esche suggested stealing from the NASCAR playbook:

Make players do more interviews. Force them if you have to.

``We don't do a good job of promoting our sport, our athletes, our coaches,'' Esche told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

``We have great stories out there and great personalities. Hockey players are some of the easiest guys to get along with, and no one knows us. We don't even mike up a goalie in the crease or a guy in the penalty box.

``Have you ever watched NASCAR? They always have a mike in a guy's face at an emotional time. The driver has a camera in the car. You see and hear what his pit crew hears and what the guy is going through.

``You've got all this stuff going on in the pit crew and you've got guys there with cameras. If there's a crash, they have four guys sticking a mike in your face and the driver is visibly upset about the crash and maybe he wants to kill someone, but he has to talk or he gets fined.''

Esche, though, shunned many requests to talk during the Flyers' run to the conference finals last season.

``Yeah, everyone called me Silent Bob last year, but you know what? There was a loophole for me,'' he told the Inquirer. ``I knew I could get away with it. In other sports, I would have been fined. And the team would have been fined.''

Not to read too much into it, but is that another veiled shot at Gary Bettman?