Golf is so Tiger-heavy that the absence of Tiger Woods from any Tour event turns it into the Take a Pass Open. The '00s might very well be the Tiger Decade, as the '90s were the Michael Decade, but one man does not a pastime make. Sorry, not even Geena Davis can make archery. Tennis is perpetually being measured for a coffin, and looking all the more unwell with the demise of the great American generation of male players now losing interest and hair. It is not likely that the Williams sisters and Anna Kournikova can carry a game if Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert could not.
Auto racing seems the perfect game, full of noise and courage and ample parking.
Except, of course, the stars are inevitably introduced as the late great. This is the time for hockey to strike, not when the iron is hot because, after all, that would melt the ice. The time to strike is at the beginning of a decade because in two or three years no one will believe that football is vulnerable, baseball needs replacing and basketball is finished, and then you've shot the '00s altogether. Horse racing has been boasting for years that it is the most popular game in the world, with attendance figures to prove only that there is not a riverboat casino nearby. I know hockey wants to be liked.