They obviously devised this plan after what happened the last time, but the fact of the matter is, while Buffalo vs Sens was a great matchup from a hockey purist sense, NOBODY cares about those 2 teams (other than the local fans of each). I have been a hockey fan for 30 years, and thought this would be a great series, but even I DIDN'T care.

Hockey . . . what to do about hockey . . . I am a hockey fan, I live in "Hockeytown", and the Red Wings are a win or two away from making it to the Stanley Cup finals and guess what? There is hardly ANY buzz about it around here. Nothing, nada, zilch. It's bizarre how little buzz there is right now. I guess if hockey can be this irrelevant in a city that used to be nuts about it and is so close to winning a championship, then the game between the Sabres and the Senators probably means nothing to more than 90% of NBC's audience.

As strange as it may sound, NBC actually made the right decision in cutting away. I'm sure the NHL is livid, but the league and its owners only have themselves to blame. They somehow found a way to make hockey less relevant to the American sports fan.

Let's keep this in perspective. This WAS, afterall, a Triple Crown race. I don't believe for a minute that the hockey game would have been bumped if this was the Suburban or the Donn Handicap. So it's not as if this means horse racing has risen on the totem poll. In fact, if the trends continue, it won't be long before horse racing coverage gets bumped for something else....like poker.

I firmly believe that the reason Fusaichi Pegasus was not 8-5 in the 2000 Derby is because ABC showed the overtime of the Washington Capitals-Pittsburgh Penguins games instead of the Wood Memorial. Most of the country did not see his win.

If you're in Detroit how and missing the buzz, go on down to a game. I came in for a game last week and there was plenty of buzz.

I heard NBC hired Don Cherry to do the finals.

Very little buzz west of the City.

It's just noticeably different this year. This city used to literally live-and-die by the fortune of the Red Wings. If they won a playoff game, everybody would be happy and excited. If they lost a playoff game, everybody would be on edge and nervous. And if they were on the brink of elimination, everybody would be downright miserable. The feeling was everywhere. It's definitely different this year.

Hard to believe that there is a sport that has done a worse job than horseracing in marketing their sport but the NHL has done it. I believe that the strike really hurt them as their relevance became marginalized. And in conjunction with that, ESPN's decision to drop all of their hockey coverage with the exception of Barry Melrose (who is probably under contract and they need him to do something) has taken the NHL out of sight and out of mind of the average sports fan. Remember ESPN is the major power broker in sports now and if horseracing wants to be relevant then we have to remain on the network as much as possible. Because when they drop you, then the sports world in general drops you too.

I believe the VS ratings are up pretty good this year and exceed what ESPN was getting in its final year. I think NBC's coverage this year is the first time hockey has been on network TV in 10+ years.

Hockey will never be the TV sport basketball is, at least in the U.S. In fact, compared to the live experience, hockey is by far the sport that translates most poorly to television. The live gate for the NHL is right there with that of the NBA.

I've heard it said that in every U.S. city there are 20,000 NHL fans and they all have season tickets. Maybe that's true.

The NHL began to "die" in the early 90's for one specific reason: The NEUTRAL ZONE TRAP!! (Damn You Jacques Lemaire!) By the late 90's it became unwatchable. The missed season due to the LOCKOUT showed the fans how little the owners/players cared about them, but considering how awful the product had become, they did us all a favor. The new rules are starting to bring it back, but it will be a long journey, and it will never be what it was. One of the reasons, that has not been addressed, is that the players are so much bigger than they used to be, but the size of the rink has remained the same. There just isn't as much room on the ice as there used to be. In the 70', 80's and early 90's, 6 feet, 200 lbs was considered big. Today this guy is too small!

VS is not a widely distributed channel. Fox, I believe has had hockey coverage the last few years. Remember the glowing puck? Hockeys 2 biggest problems with attracting new viewers are 1. It is a bad betting sport and 2. most of the players are foreign. Add to that the fact that most of the south is uninterested and view it as a northern sport and there is virtually no mainstream exposure.

I dont believe that the live gate is anywhere near the NBA's.

Depends on the city, in Buffalo/Western New York the Sabres sell out every game... and the area lost not one but TWO NBA teams in the 60's and 70's due to lack of interest.

On that note, does anyone really care about the NBA?

someone does because they have major TV deals. If the people stop watching , the deals will go away too.

There are very few non-canadian hockey hot spots in the NHL. Bettman is hands down the worst commissioner of any sport, ever.

Also, I recently read a report that half the teams in the NHL are broke. I used to follow hockey in a big way. But in LA or FL in the winter there is little to no coverage and zero passion. When I come back to KY I can either watch the Blue Jackets or an occasional game on VS, which only recently became available here. It was not that long ago that this was an upcoming sport. No longer.
For those that are not in the Northeast or Wisconsin or Minn, there is almost no one that even knows the playoffs are going on.

As a Minnesota-raised person, I find it rather odd that the NHL is still playing in late MAY. It's like baseball games being played in snowstorms; the natural season for the game is long over. After all, icehouses have to be off the lakes by April 1, folks have put away their skates weeks ago, and are getting ready for the city beaches to open on Memorial Day (although nobody over 15 would dream of actually going into the water - too cold!).

One of the reasons many teams are broke, which confirms your assessment of Gary Bettman, was the ridiculous expansion that the NHL did during the time the game was dying due to the neutral zone trap, which was developed to allow less talented teams to be competetive (which was directly due to expansion)... all this ties together!

We have the answer!!! Maybe we can be consultants for the NHL. Can't do much worse

Uh Ann....
They are playing the games inside now. They have these big things called zambonis....:cool:

They should have hired John Davidson to be the commisioner, instead of GM of the Blues. I heard him on Sirius a few weeks ago, he succinctly explained the problem with the way referees were dealing with the new rules, for the most part slowing down the game. He used the analogy of cops pulling over speeders going 70 in a 50 zone, which was the way officials used to referee games, today it's like cops pulling over speeders (giving penalties to players) for going 51 in a 50 zone...aka no leniency (moreover, no common sense). The director of officiating, whose name escapes me, was a rotten referee when he was on the ice.

EAT another F'ING DONUT!!!!

Not that guy is it?

That was Jim Shoenfeld to Don Koharski, I believe:)
Shoenfeld coaches the Rangers AHL team, Koharski is still officiating.