THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE’S long march to irrelevance continues apace. Last week, cable-sports king ESPN broke off negotiations with NHL execs and said it will move to schedule alternate programming for next season. This came just days after the network announced it would not exercise its $60-million option to claim broadcast rights if and when the 2005-2006 campaign gets underway. “We really had no choice,” said Mark Shapiro, ESPN’s executive VP for programming and production. “We’re not going to be held hostage like we were last season.”

The NHL, you see, has never been very good to ESPN. Leave aside, for a moment, pro hockey’s ongoing labor spat, which cost the league its 2004-2005 season. The roots of the NHL-ESPN partnership date back to the network’s founding in 1979. ESPN briefly held the cable broadcast rights to NHL contests during the 1980s–until the league dumped ESPN in 1988 and chose to go with Sports Channel instead. At the time, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky said sticking with ESPN would’ve been “better for the game.” “Sure, we got more money from Sports Channel,” the Great One wrote in his 1990 autobiography, “but how much did we lose in exposure?”