Checked in on the ESPN.com home page on Sunday afternoon, with the NFL in full swing for the day. As you might expect, the main above-the-fold area of the page was all NFL scores and the top three stories on the right sidebar were NFL-related. This is to be expected; the NFL is the biggest thing going in American sports and it’s be foolish of ESPN to not throw as many resources as it can at the sport. The page is also chock full of the baseball playoffs and of college football, and since those two compete for #2 in a lot of different ways, that’s no surprise either.

That said, the NHL just began over the weekend, too. With the NBA possibly locked out for the year, the NHL is presumably the biggest thing going for a winter sport, and I expected to find something hockey-related to read.

  • The following sports were covered in the “Headlines” sidebar, besides the big three mentioned above: NASCAR, tennis (the Japan Open), golf (the Korea Open), Formula One
  • The following sports were covered in the main story rotation, beneath the above-the-fold main section, besides the big three: NASCAR
  • The following sports were covered in a main, page-wide section, slightly below the fold (again, besides the big three): Ultimate fighting, high school football, skateboarding
  • The following sports appeared in the “Must Read” headlines section, near the bottom of the page: soccer, women’s basketball, men’s college basketball, women’s college basketball, rugby.

And finally… in that Must Read section, buried between soccer and the WNBA Finals… a hockey story. About Sidney Crosby. Who’s out with concussion symptoms and has been for most of the year.

Thanks to the ESPN.com home page, I can tell you won a third-tier tennis tournament and an Asian Tour golf event. I can tell you who clinched the Formula One world title and whether England won or lost at the Rugby World Cup. I know the name of one of skateboarding’s up-and-coming stars, how the Stanford Cardinal women’s basketball team is shaping up for the year, and who won the latest UFC championship fight.

I cannot, however, say definitively whether the NHL regular season has begun or not.