Hockey once was king

Once upon a time hockey in the Spokesman Review WAS king.

But the coverage recently afforded the Spokane Chiefs ought to be an embarrassment to this newspaper.

The team played in front of a collective crowd of over 18,000 fans Feb. 28 and 29, winning for a sixth straight time. NHL draftee Ty Smith had a record night with 8 points in a win over Seattle, and then he led a remarkable comeback with two goals in shy of a minute in a win over Tri Cities.

But on consecutive days, The Spokesman-Review gave these efforts dismally minimal coverage.

Those victories made it a near PERFECT February for the Chiefs (11-1-0-0). Spokane followed that with a sweep of a Western Hockey League’s Central Division road trip and nine wins in a row.

Spokane returned home for a March 10 game with Kamloops and the coverage got worse! Not even a paragraph in advance. And when goaltender Lukas Parik became the FIRST Spokane goalie to score a goal in over 100 years of the sport being played in the city and its back page with day-old GU news on page 1.

Having researched and written two books on Spokane sports history, there is no question that if it had not been for hockey in the 1940s and 1950s, Spokane might never have had its venerable old Coliseum — and later, perhaps, the Spokane Arena.

We all know who the big sports dog is in Spokane these days and it’s an honor rightfully earned.

But should that devotion take away from other popular Spokane sports?

Paul Delaney

Spokane