Growing up I used to watch hockey all the time. I really enjoyed it. When the NHL went on strike a few years ago I wrote them off as a league. Throwing away an entire season is unacceptable. This is entertainment. Fans have so many choices as it is, why on Earth would they spend their time and money on a sports league that turns it's back on the fans? I haven't watched a game since and I don't plan to every again.
Well, we're in our second Stanley Cup Finals after the strike and it's clear that no one cares. Look at the Stanley Cup ratings for game 3. It was the lowest ratings EVER for NBC in prime time. It lost out to a re-run of "The West Wing" in July. That's the equivalent of a girl turning you down for a date to wash her hair. Only a little over a million people watched the game. That's nothing. I think more people watch a mid-week baseball game than watch the Stanley Cup Finals. If this doesn't send a message to the NHL that they're in serious trouble and need to think about what they have to do to revive this league then I don't know what will.
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Yeah we all used to watch hockey. You know what? The game itself hasn't changed - when played correctly (i.e. not the mid-90's neutral zone trap Devils) it's a very attractive, fast-paced, exciting game.
But as you say, the NHL post-strike has fallen so far in the eyes of the American sporting public that it is now getting pre-empted for... pre-Preakness Stakes hype. http://sportsline.com/spin/story/10191204
Even worse, with the influx of young players, the game itself actually has a slew of marketable stars like Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, Yveginy Malkin, etc.
And don't let me get started on how the NHL bastardized the sport by taking it AWAY from the Canadian cities where it grew and moving it to absurd American markets like Miami, Columbus, OH, Charlotte, and our Stanley-Cup champ Anaheim. That's like taking moving beach volleyball from SoCal and the Gulf Coast to Manitoba and Montreal and hoping ratings go up.
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