Afternoon weekend games killed the finals for me.
I have things to do on the saturday or Sunday afternoon.=

on some level, does it not make some sense to pursue the 300 million people in the U.S. who aren’t watching the finals as opposed to the 30 million who aren’t watching in this country?

I agree to some extent James – the league needs to make some concessions toward the end of gaining American fans – but we also need to consider the context. The fact of the matter is that the NHL has been on American network television (virtually uninterrupted) for decades now. At what point do we throw our hands up and acknowledge that perhaps the big payday simply isn’t in the offing?

Sure, the finals are looking good for US TV this season, but what happens when the next Edmonton-Carolina or Anaheim-Ottawa final rolls around?

I highly doubt anyone reading or posting on this blog isn’t watching any portion of the finals.

(although 4 out of 90 votes say otherwise)

I can’t bring myself to watch. I’m “following”, because that’s what I do, but I’m tuning out due to generally petty reasons.

I think the matchup has a lot to do with both sets of ratings, James. Detroit v. Pittsburgh is a great sell in many American markets, especially those of the two teams. However, for me (and probably some other Canadians), it’s the worst final I could imagine. We’ve already seen this before last year with very similar lineups, and these teams just don’t really appeal to me.

The question I have to consider every time I tune in is which team I hate less, and it’s a difficult one. The Red Wings are the Yankees of the NHL (except better); generally in contention, loved by their fans and hated by just about everyone else. Pittsburgh would be a nice change of pace, except for Crosby the human hype machine. I’m still watching the games, but I can’t get too excited about them. If they turn out to be close, then that’s all right, but blowouts like the one the other night just compel me to change the channel even more. That’s not to criticize anyone who is enjoying this matchup; it just doesn’t appeal to me.

One nice thing is that the NHL’s being smart and generally not going head to head with the NBA Finals; if they were, I’d be watching those instead, as it’s a much more compelling matchup. The interesting thing there is if Cleveland had won, it would be very similar to the NHL finals; the dynasty against the up-and-coming superstar and his team. However, I’d still take that over a Pittsburgh – Detroit final. At least LeBron and Kobe have interesting personalities, and it’s fun to watch the clash between them. In this one, we’ve got dull-as-dishwater Crosby as the main attraction. The most interesting personality in the series is actually Chelios for my money, and he barely gets to play these days.

While I agree that the NHL is missing a huge opportunity to get more fans into another building here in Southern Ontario, on some level, does it not make some sense to pursue the 300 million people in the U.S. who aren’t watching the finals as opposed to the 30 million who aren’t watching in this country?

Well said, James. Too many fans seem to make this an either/or proposition. You can pursue growing the sport in the US through increasing TV exposure (and hopefully increasing youth participation in nontraditional markets) and look to tap potential revenue in Canada at the same time. But I am one of the people who thinks the NHL risks taking its fanbase for granted if it does too much to try and make US TV happy (like scheduling playoff series over a three-week period to maximize weekend TV opportunities).

“Canada has only six cities with a population base of one million or more, which is about the size needed to support an NHL team; the U.S. has 52.”

James, a quick question. When you say cities with a population of over 1 million, do you mean within the city limits, or population of the entire metropolitan area?

Quebec City is ranked 6th in Canada with a population of 727,445, so can you tell us who are the other five cities? Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and?

From reading these comments, Im learning two things:

(1) Canada’s cities are much smaller than I realized.
(2) Lots of people don’t have TiVos or other DVRs. How can people not watch the games on tape? If you time it right, you can fast forward through all the between period crap and still watch the last 10 minutes live.

Part of what’s been ruining my enjoyment of the finals (aside from the Hawks not being in it of course) is the poor quality of the broadcasts we have available. VS seems to think it’s a good idea to zoom in on a player after he passes the puck, and you miss a couple seconds of action to watch someone admire their work. We often miss the scrums after the whistle because they’d rather show the goalie skating in a circle with the puck in his glove. I often miss the lower half of the ice because they’re promoting some UFC fight or something of that nature. I know we’ve beaten VS to death over at SCH but it’s a pretty valid point. NBC’s overall quality is a little better, but hockey is too fast-paced to try and put up with two analysts at once.

Unfortunately I don’t have access to TSN or CBC or anything of the sort, but I’m willing to bet they do a little better with it. I feel like it would be wise for the national broadcasters to watch some of the production of the local games and see what works. Hawks games on CSN Chicago are particularly well done, though the games televised on WGN are certainly not as good. The only other “home” broadcast I’ve seen was a Bruins game on NESN which I also thought was well done. Regardless of who I’m watching, I think I’ll always prefer to have someone’s home announcers because they just seem that much more into the action and really draw you into it. That kind of excitement is something that could really draw in a casual observer who’s maybe just flipping through channels. Not that Emerick is doing a bad job, because I actually find him to be entertaining, but having a rooting interest makes the game more fun to watch, and if the announcers have one too it seems like the broadcast is more fun.

… on some level, does it not make some sense to pursue the 300 million people in the U.S. who aren’t watching the finals as opposed to the 30 million who aren’t watching in this country?

Well, not necessarily. After all, there are a billion people in China who aren’t watching either.

The question isn’t how many people aren’t watching, it’s how many people aren’t watching who you have some realistic hope of converting into viewers. My guess is that would bring the US total down significantly.

And a secondary question would be how many existing fans, in each country, do you risk losing as you continue to focus on chasing after these non-fans? And “losing” doesn’t even need to mean somebody turning off the game completely, just tuning in less than they used to.

I live in Florida and I been watching as much as I can. It matters how the game goes, close game I will watch more. Learning hockey this year after doing some volunteer work with the Lightning so just watching to learn more about it.

Also this blog is great, keep up the good work. It helps a neophyte like me of the game learn some more.

Canadian Metro populations (2006 estimates):

1. Toronto 5,113,149
2. Montreal 3,635,571
3. Vancouver 2,116,581
4. Ottawa 1,130,761
5. Calgary 1,079,310
6. Edmonton 1,034,945
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7. Quebec City 715,515
8. Winnipeg 694,668
9. Hamilton 692,911
10. London 457,720

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_metropolitan_areas_in_Canada