American performance

[IceSpeed2]

In a league that looks to be a third American born players(only checked a few teams) the leaderboard seems to be absent of Americans. Hopefully the American players can turn it around by the Winter Olympics. Where I'm from Hockey is bigger than football so this is sort of a big deal to me.
UMaine is about 40% American so they have a good core of American players. New England and Minnesota seem to be the only regions where hockey is a major sport however. It is a thousand times bigger than basketball here.Edited by: IceSpeed2

 

[hedgehog]

I looked at Maines roster, you guys are loaded with Canucks. The U of Minnesota has only two on the team, and one of them never plays. Asfar as the Americanplayers turning it on before the Olympics, I think this is going to be an interesting year. The Brett Hulls and Chris Chelios's and all those 40 yr olds are now gone, I think the US hasdeveloped talent just in time. There arealot of young guys in the pipeline that could make the US a threat again in international hockey, unfortunately it probobaly wont be this olympics.

 

[IceSpeed2]

Wow, only 2 Canadians on U Minn. Where I live, there is a tremendous Canadian influence(I have even learned some Acadian French) so it was a relief to see the major hockey team here have Americans(given the NHL's Canadian dominance). Then again, Minn has a lot of Cannucks too.Poor research on my part though, I should have checked other teams.
IIHF has the US at 6(because of the World Championship). Wisconsin has a very large number of American players to(90%). They are #1 right now(they won't stay there though). They will lose to Minnesota this Friday.
Its good that the New England Prep School powers(Thayer,Phillips Exeter,Phillips Andover, St. Paul, Tabor Academy, Deerfield etc) are still recruiting primarily Americans. I follow them a lot.Edited by: IceSpeed2

 

[Matra1]

New England and Minnesota seem to be the only regions where hockey is a major sport however. It is a thousand times bigger than basketball here.

Hockey is supposed to be really big in Michigan too. Detroit is known as "Hockeytown USA". Given Detroit's demographics it's probably only in the suburbs and smaller towns near Detroit rather than the 80% black city.


Also, the World Juniors championship was held in both Minnesota and North Dakota last Christmas. They seemed to get good crowds in N Dakota.

 

[IceSpeed2]

I think Wisconsin is big too. Michigan, probably varies with the area. Detroit is obviously an important place for hockey with the Red Wings success, but I think the Pistons and Lions overshadow the Red Wings some. Just my impressions from being there.
Do a lot of players come from Detroit? I know that hockey is a popular sport in much of the US, but I don't think it has major sport status in most of the country. I think in a lot the breadbasket and New York City, hockey's signature is the fights sadly. Edited by: IceSpeed2

 

[hedgehog]

IceSpeed2 hockey is real big inMichigan- (Detroit)as well. I know this because they are the only team that outdraws the Minnesota Wild in attendance, and that is because the Wild's arena capacity is 18,500, while I think Joe Louis arena in Detroit has about 20-21,000 capacity.


You bring up an interesting point that maybe Jaxvid would be able to answer- if the Pistons overshadow the Red Wings. I can tell you when I go to Minnesota Wild games and they are playing Detroit, there are significant numbers of Red wing jerseys in the crowd.(more than any other visiting team brings in). I was curious because I read in the paper the other day that Minnesota Timberwolves season tickets sales are down from 10,000 last year to 8,000 this year, and average attendance is 13,000. While for Minnesota Wild season tickets- you have to sign up on a waiting list, and average attendance is 18,000. That is when Iwondered ifthere were any other markets where the NHL team outdrew the NBA team, and thought possibly Detroit. Jaxvid?

 

[jaxvid]

Well the Pistons outdrew the Red Wings last season averaging about 21,000 a game and the Red Wings avg= 0!

Typically they both average about 21,000 per game. Pistons were 1st in attendance in the NBA last year, the season before the Red Wings were 2nd (Montreal was 1st).

The Pistons have gone to the finals the last two years while the Wings have had early playoff exits. However I think the fan support breaks down as follows. The Red Wings will always draw alot as their fan base is pretty loyal. Plus they get some folks from across the border in Canada.

The Pistons fan support is less loyal but they also get a boost from the Detroit areas large black population, unlike the hockey team.

But even the sucky Lions sell-out every game. Only the Detroit hispanic Tigers draw poorly and I think they even went over a million this year which is amazing considering how bad they are.

Detroit is a sports town. Everything draws well here. Pistons vs Red Wings, doesn't matter, they will both fill as many seats as they have available. Although to be fair both organizations have put some pretty good teams up the last decade or so.

 

[Don Wassall]

The average NHL attendance per gamefor the 2003-'04 seasonwas 16,534. The average NBA game the same season drew 16,793, a minimal difference. It's clear that hockey is just as big a draw as basketball, though one would never know it by the tremendous disparity in media coverage (not to mention the media's rarely concealeddislike of the NHL).


I wouldn't be surprised if the NHL ends up outdrawing the NBA in '05-'06. It seems like there are quite a few NBA teams where attendance is down in the early part of the new season.

 

[Don Wassall]

In '03-'04, 15 cities had both NBA and NHL teams. In 8 cities the NBA team outdrew the NHL on average; in six cities the NHL outdrew the NBA, and Los Angeles was a draw, with the Lakers outdrawing the Kingsand the Kings outdrawing the Clippers.


For these 15 cities, Detroit had boththe highest average NBA attendance per game (21,290) and the highest NHL attendance (20,066), which is a reflection partly on arena size, and partly on Detroit being an excellent sports town.


The six cities where the NHL outdrew the NBA were Toronto, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Denver, Miami, and Atlanta.


The fact that the NHL draws 99% as well as the NBA with far less publicity means that hockey is more popular than the media claims it is and that it has a significant base of dedicated supporters.


As far as the U.S., most American hockey players still come mostly from Minnesota and Massachusetts. In Pittsburgh where I live the NHL has had a team for almost 40 years and there was an AHL team here for a long time before that, but widespread interest in playing hockey among boys only began when Mario Lemieux arrived on the scene in 1984. Thequality of playin high school hockey here has greatly improved but still has a long way to go to catch Minnesota and New England. Thequalityof coaching for one thing only improves incrementally over time, but this area has produced two recent NHL players -- Ryan Malone of the Penguins (son of Penguins scout and former NHLer Greg Malone) and R. J. Umbarger, a first round draft choice who is now playing for the Flyers.

 

[sunshine]

This is a terrific area of topic. Comparing attendance figures between the NHL and NBA. If they are roughly equal which seems to be the case then why the mdia disparity in coverage? The argument will probably revolve around television revenue. Keep in mind basketball has a running start since people are weened on hoops with college basketball coverage. Not to mention at the high school level basketball in general is a more popular sport. Many high schools don't even offer hockey due to climate. That said the gap between coverage--best barometer is Sports Illustrated covers-seems tilted towards basketball in a prejudicial way. In recent years SI has plopped high school basketball players on the covers while hockey superstars like Steve Yzerman--yes folks he has never been on the cover of SI--or even Ron Francis I think never graced an SI cover. Will have to check on Francis.Now with the OLN deal where national games are even less accessible to the general public hockey consolidates it's niche status instead of broadening their horizons and reaching out to folks across the country.


Perhaps sports marketing is too tied up with the idea (or is that ideal) that the real athletes are black only. Consider that the Atlanta Thrashers have an athlete as electifying as Michael Vick but receives about one tenth the media attention and you get the idea that somewhere the deck is stacked.


I don't think hockey will go the way of boxing which at one time was the biggest sports attraction. but is now just a shadow of it's self.And ESPN should at least devote an hour or two hockey wrap shows so guys like me can follow the entire league.


We should continue to monitor the attendance figures. If hockey is "dead" then why are they still drawing enthusiastic crowds? Remember the NHL is far less hyped than the NBA but is still drawing the same amount of fans to games.

 

[hedgehog]

Thatsa great post Don, the next time people start telling us nobody cares about hockey we have a little more ammo. It also made me think. If I were a multi-millionaire and wanted to buy a sports franchise, I would buy a hockey team. They have to be at a discount right now, with great potential.

 

[Matra1]

Race may be why blacks don't take it up and that may have some impact on media coverage but keep in mind that hockey, unlike basketball, has always been a regional sport in the US. People might go to games in places like Nashville and Tampa but they don't follow the sport all year - it's just a night out and possibly cheaper than going to basketball. During the strike Canadian pundits spent a lot of time talking about the sport's ratings in the US on ESPN and occasionally some network and itcompared very poorly to basketball and baseball and was right down there with Professional Bowling and the like.

 

[nj816]

This is a really interesting subject consider the NHL gets about as much respect from the mainstream media as professional wrestling.


When looking at NBA teams and NHL teams that share the same venue you have to take into account the disparity in seating capicity. As Don pointed out, the Pistons outdrew the Red Wings, but this is only because the Pistons have a bigger seating capacity.


The same holds truein New York where Madison Square Gardens seats 18,200 for hockey and about 19,500 forKnick games. Thisalso applies to other cities such as Dallas, LA& Philadelphia where usually over a1000 seats are lost to accommodate the size of the rink.


Also keep in mind that attendance figure are usually inflated as the attendance numbers are basedon tickets sold as opposed to an actual turnstile count. For example, I seen New Jersey Net games where they have an announced attendance of15,000, but in reality you could of probably had your own personal vendor if you went to the game.


Most importantly, the NHL in my opinion has a much more loyal fan base than the NBA. There are numerous NHL teams that will draw fans no matter how much they suck (e.g. Red Wings, Flyers, Rangers, Wild, Bruins, Avalanche, Sharks & all the Canadienteams) I'm hard pressed to think of a poor NBA team that consistently sells out or draws a good crowd. Keep in mind thatmost fans are fickle & once the team starts losing, their interest wanes with it. I find this especially true of the NBA fans, where many in attendance have obtained their tickets thru some corporate outlet and couldn't tell you the difference between a basketball or a bocce ball.


You can rest assured thatwhenthe Pistons start losing over a period of ayear or two you won't be able to give their tickets away. That won't happen withthe Wings. I seen it here in New York wherethe Knicks are no longer the " in thing" tosee because they suck.The Rangers fan baseon the other hand is fiercely loyalin spite of the fact they getabout a 1/10 of the media coverage.


Despite the aforementioned, hockey will continue to be the subject of ridicule by the mainstream media as long as the only thing that is black is the puck. In New York they always like to say that the same 18,200 people go to Ranger games every time they play. You will hear the same all tired cliches such as: "You can't see the puck" " I went to a boxing match and a hockey game broke out."., etc, etc coming from the majority of the idiots in the media. But I know there are many on this site and across the country that see hockey for the great sport it is. A sport that isfast paced, rough and played by athletes that give a 100% effort every night. Athletes that for the most part are humble, gracious and accommodating. Tell me another sport where you are going to find that.

 

[jaxvid]

The six cities where the NHL outdrew the NBA were Toronto, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Denver, Miami, and Atlanta.

Miami and Atlanta??? That just blows me away. Good info Don! I think those numbers really put it in perspective. Let me add this about "TV revenue". Hockey is a big money TV sport. But not network. The media likes to trash hockey TV ratings because they aren't good for network games. So what! All the money is in local broadcasts on pay cable.

Basketball does better on network because it is offered for free and a much higher percentage of black people in this country do not have cable. I would wager that if you were to add up hockey TV revenue including pay cable it would dwarf basketball TV revenue.

Local revenue is where the money is at. Do the New York Yankees make a lot of money from network TV, heck no, but they are the richest franchise in sports due to their regional TV revenue.

 

[Don Wassall]

That's a good point. In Pittsburgh, the Penguins draw large TV audiences. A lot of the people who watch them on TV don't go to games, either because the tickets are too expensive or because of age, infirmity and other situations. Going downtown in the evening to catch a game is generally an activity for young and middle aged people who have the dough for it. Overall there's a lot of people who follow the team, probably at least as many who are interested in the Pirates,and Pittsburgh isn't considered a hockey hotbed.


A significant portion of season tickets for both the NBA and NHL are bought by corporations and small and medium-sized businesses, along with individuals who often spend anice chunkof their income on them. Based on attendance and local television ratings, I bet that hockey has just as many fans per capita in areas that have teams as basketball does. The real difference in the national image of the two sportsstems frommedia coverage, which always is dramatically tilted toward black athletes and "black" sports.Edited by: Don Wassall