NUMBERS GAME
The amount the Wild's stick budget reportedly increased this season because of the more expensive composite sticks. Coaches have complained about how easily the sticks have been breaking.
The NHL is far from a favorite, especially with two underdogs in the Western Conference finals. Television ratings for postseason games are down, and many are blaming the elimination of the more familiar teams in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
According to published reports, NHL ratings are down 21 percent on ABC, 14 percent on ESPN and 20 percent on ESPN2. And it's not as though the league had a whole lot of viewers last season.
Fans in Minnesota are watching the Wild in record numbers, but the Wild-Anaheim Mighty Ducks game Monday got a .8 rating/ 1 share nationally on ESPN, ac-cording to the Saint Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press.
That is not good news, especially because the NHL's TV deal expires after next season, and the uncertain labor situation already was seen as a stumbling block in upcoming negotiations.
"It's probably safe to say that these teams are not the ones [commissioner] Gary Bettman would have wanted to see in the later rounds,'' former NHL coach Jacques Demers told the National Post. "For TV, this is very bad news. If the NHL were a sitcom, it would be off the air already.''
Even in Chicago, supposedly a big hockey market, there is little buzz about the playoffs. Sports-radio updates often ignore them completely, and there also are times when the games are not mentioned in sports segments on the local news. Many of my fellow sportswriters, who are willing to spend hours watching almost any sport, do not follow the NHL.
At my gym a few weeks ago, an NHL playoff game was turned off so a third of the TVs could show an NBA playoff game. That was not surprising. The surprise was the fact that "7th Heaven'' was showing on another group of TVs and apparently was considered a better entertainment option than the NHL. "7th Heaven.''
The playoff game was between the Philadelphia Flyers and Toronto Maple Leafs, one of the league's most anticipated series.
If the Blackhawks had qualified for the playoffs and made it this far, many Chicagoans would be showing more interest.
But in some ways, the talk of declining TV ratings is as irrelevant as the NHL's previous talk of better ratings. The problem is the ratings often are low--no matter who advances in the playoffs.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/hawks/cst-spt-jenn18.html
The amount the Wild's stick budget reportedly increased this season because of the more expensive composite sticks. Coaches have complained about how easily the sticks have been breaking.
The NHL is far from a favorite, especially with two underdogs in the Western Conference finals. Television ratings for postseason games are down, and many are blaming the elimination of the more familiar teams in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
According to published reports, NHL ratings are down 21 percent on ABC, 14 percent on ESPN and 20 percent on ESPN2. And it's not as though the league had a whole lot of viewers last season.
Fans in Minnesota are watching the Wild in record numbers, but the Wild-Anaheim Mighty Ducks game Monday got a .8 rating/ 1 share nationally on ESPN, ac-cording to the Saint Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press.
That is not good news, especially because the NHL's TV deal expires after next season, and the uncertain labor situation already was seen as a stumbling block in upcoming negotiations.
"It's probably safe to say that these teams are not the ones [commissioner] Gary Bettman would have wanted to see in the later rounds,'' former NHL coach Jacques Demers told the National Post. "For TV, this is very bad news. If the NHL were a sitcom, it would be off the air already.''
Even in Chicago, supposedly a big hockey market, there is little buzz about the playoffs. Sports-radio updates often ignore them completely, and there also are times when the games are not mentioned in sports segments on the local news. Many of my fellow sportswriters, who are willing to spend hours watching almost any sport, do not follow the NHL.
At my gym a few weeks ago, an NHL playoff game was turned off so a third of the TVs could show an NBA playoff game. That was not surprising. The surprise was the fact that "7th Heaven'' was showing on another group of TVs and apparently was considered a better entertainment option than the NHL. "7th Heaven.''
The playoff game was between the Philadelphia Flyers and Toronto Maple Leafs, one of the league's most anticipated series.
If the Blackhawks had qualified for the playoffs and made it this far, many Chicagoans would be showing more interest.
But in some ways, the talk of declining TV ratings is as irrelevant as the NHL's previous talk of better ratings. The problem is the ratings often are low--no matter who advances in the playoffs.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/hawks/cst-spt-jenn18.html
