I must say, after anxiously anticipating the first weekend full of NHL action for months now, I’m left with an unsettling taste on the roof of my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, the money I dropped on NHL Gamecenter Live has already paid for itself – four different games went to overtime on Saturday – and lucky guy that I am, I was on the clock to watch them all. It was a little disheartening that the story about Palin being booed was the most noteworthy happening of the week in the eyes of the mainstream media, but I digress.

No, what bothered me was the fact that the percentage of the hockey rink that remains ad or graphic free seems to be slowly dwindling. Where ads were once the exclusive province of the boards, faceoff circle and scoreboard, they’ve been slowly bleeding to just about everywhere from the graphics out of the broadcast booth to the logos that are now officially worming their way inside the blue line.

I know most people have already grown accustomed to the oversaturation of ads – you’ll be hard-pressed to find anybody who gets upset anymore when they’re forced to listen to, “Here’s your Ford Truck play of the game. Built Ford tough!” in the middle of a broadcast. After hearing during the playoffs last season that the NHL is investigating “virtual ad” technology, which will digitally insert ads onto the boards, I think we have to draw the line somewhere.

For the NHL, that line is conveniently drawn on the ice for us – the blue line. It’s just a matter of practicality. Even with our fancy shmancy high definition television sets, it can still be difficult to follow the puck when watching the game on the tube. Covering the ice in a myriad of ads not only distracts me from enjoying the product I paid good money for, but it also obfuscates the puck from my view.

The conventional argument for this kind of advertising proliferation is that it brings in extra ad dollars that can be used to make ticket prices cheaper. Of course, that lie fails to stand up to even cursory scrutiny, because ticket prices continue to go up, even as attendance in certain markets continues to stagnate and ad space blossom.

So to all of you NHL marketing gurus out there: stop dicking around with the our fresh, clean ice. If you want to cover players’ jerseys in minute ads that make them look like NASCAR stock cars on ice and plug promos for the “Cialis hardest hit of the game,” have at it. Just keep your sellout bullshit outside of the blue line.

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