3. Then Came The Marketing And The Franchising
Just as Star Wars action figures, fan books, video games started to pop up all over the place, so too did the sport of hockey in the United States. After his move to Los Angeles, Gretzky was introduced to professional American-class marketers who proceeded to American-style market the crap out of him. They even got him to host Saturday Night Live which was so embarrassingly bad that SNL won't allow a clip of it to be shown outside the USA. The popularity of a somewhat reformed NHL Empire grew exponentially once Luke was away from his friends and he continued to be the most dominant personality in hockey. Based on Gretzky alone, he not only brought the Los Angeles Kings to their first Stanley Cup Final but also was responsible for their ugly purple/yellow uniforms changed to the much more hip nineties black/silver design that is still in use today. Franchises popped up in American cities whose only experience with snow and ice was outside the local hockey arena or in their margaritas. In a peculiar irony, the team from Minnesota (who's climate is like Hoth's) moved to Dallas, Texas (which is like Tatooine's). Similar franchises popped up in the sun-based states of Georgia, Arizona and two in Florida. It seemed perhaps the Alliance had won and they inherited an Empire instead of overthrowing it. The idea of a Gretzky-esque game of hockey that celebrated goals and assists more than punches and brawls emerged but any attempts to eliminate fighting all together were ridiculed by old-timers (like me) who understood that 'player police' were required to keep the game honest and prevent it from becoming nothing more than an expensive pick-up game played by self-righteous elitists.