The beauty of politics is you never have to consider historical perspective — unless, of course, it would tarnish a political opponent.

And so when members of the West Valley City Council voted last week to approve a deal to buy 40 percent of the Utah Grizzlies minor league hockey team, they could couch it as a necessary move to keep a valued community asset from going out of business. They also could talk about needing to keep a major tenant in the publicly owned E Center arena. They even could talk about how absorbing the team's debt could end up paying dividends some day if the team begins to make money.

They didn't have to revisit history. They didn't have to ask whether building the E Center was such a good idea in the first place, or whether the promises at the time that hockey's popularity would continue to grow, especially after the 2002 Winter Olympics, were unrealistic, as some critics (including me) pointed out at the time. They didn't have to talk about all the public money that has gone into the arena since the first shovels of dirt were turned 13 years ago.

Those things involved a different set of politicians, of course.

Hockey is one of those sports on the fringes of the American psyche that forces its way into the public's peripheral vision from time to time. I say that despite being a fan of the game. I even spent a brief period covering hockey for this newspaper. Even during good times, however, the NHL has a tough time fighting for recognition. Five years ago, when the economy in general was booming, the league lost $272.6 million.

For minor league hockey, the road is even bumpier. In the Salt Lake area, other than some good times when there was no pro basketball to compete with, there hasn't been much of a road at all.

As an owner, Art Teece did everything he could to keep the old Golden Eagles franchise alive, back when it played in the Salt Palace Acord Arena. He kept the team going despite having two leagues fold from beneath him. Finally, with the team in the International Hockey League, he sold to the late Larry H. Miller, who knew a thing or two about running sports teams. But he couldn't make a go of it and finally sold the team to someone who moved it to Detroit.