That's not true. Look at 2005-06. The team hadn't made the playoffs in 4+ seasons and still averaged 15,500 a game. The next season they averaged 15,000 and this is when the NHL league average was around 16,500. In 06-07, they averaged more per home game than the Islanders, Devils, Blues, Capitals, Blackhawks, Bruins and a host of other more established markets. And, again, this for a team that was over 5 years from their last playoff appearance.

Finally, just look at this season. The city was basically told by the media that they would have no team after this season. The team hadn't made the playoffs in nearly a decade and attendance was pretty poor to start the season (crowds in the 8,000 to 9,000 range). Yet, 3-4 months later, the place is routinely getting 16,000 for a team that may not be here next season and could make the playoffs. If the Coyotes can be a competitive team and give the fans a reason to think they'll stay in town, they will go back to being around mid-league in attendance (like they were back in their playoff days).

NHL Attendance - National Hockey League - ESPN

Here's an interesting study on how the attendance has changed just this season for Phoenix. Take 3 games against the Ducks:

October 31, 2009: 6,495 in attendance (right after the first story of the Coyotes leaving being a *done deal* came out)

December 23, 2009: 10,200 in attendance (the team was getting into the playoff race and some of the leaving town stories were dying down)

March 6, 2010: 15,050 in attendance (team is now entrenched in what appears to be a solid playoff spot and playing well)

So, in a little more than four months, it went from 6,500 fans for a Coyotes-Ducks game to 15,000 fans for the same matchup. I think this shows the potential for the market if the ownership issue is stabilized and the team can be somewhat competitive.

Arles, I'm not bashing Phoenix in any way as I love the place after visiting for Spring Training and golf and would love to go again...but nothing I've seen past or present, tells me that it is a sustainable hockey market.

It just doesn't past the sniff test when I hear attendance figures like you're quoting and looking at the stands during the highlights...something doesn't jive. 16000 fans doesn't look/sound like it used to...but I guess these days the NHL likes to subscribe to creative accounting to suit it's interests...if they want to look good for new, potential business they'll say they had 16,000 tickets "sold" but if they want to report earnings to creditors then they only had 10,000 come through the gates.

Either way, that franchise is not out of the woods, yet.

Yeah, I agree it's not a top NHL market. But, given the state of their stadium and their history of attendance when the team is moderately competitive, I wouldn't put Phoenix as a top market to move. A lot of the people in Arizona (esp in the winter months) are from areas in the midwest/east and are pretty big hockey fans. If they can just get this ownership/lease issue straightened out, they should be in a pretty good position to compete for many years.

Not to make light of the situation but I wonder how much of the increase coincides with the tourist population of Phoenix increasing during those times? I know my brother-in-law was a game in Dec when he was there (paid $15/ticket) and I did the same when I was there a few years ago in March and paid similar prices.

I'm sure it's a bit of a reach but I would think wintering Canadians probably would find cheap hockey tickets a welcome distraction after a long day at the ballpark/on the links...no? ;)

I have no doubt there's a buzz in the city now that the Coyotes are playing well but the real test will be if they can sustain that to start the following season.

Most of the snowbirds come here in October and leave after spring training. Plus, the Glendale Arena is about as far as humanly possible from the main spring training facilities in Tempe, Mesa and Scottsdale. It's certainly possible some spring training people could decide to make the 40+ mile drive in rush hour traffic across the valley to see a Wednesday night game against Anaheim, but I'm guessing that's probably not too likely.

As to next season, the hope right now is that they are here next season. If that's the case, I expect attendance will be pretty solid. We've been told since last August that the team would be gone at the end of the season and that's put a big damper into attendance.

Why stay away if the team is near leaving? Shouldn't the beginning of the season be the time to "show" the league that they want the team to stay by showing up?

I know the Oilers were close to packing up a few times and if it weren't for some local Richie Rich's who bucked I'd likely be cheering for the Oklahoma Oilers or something like that.

Being told theyre near leaving is one thing, being told theyre going but would still like your money is another.

Ovechkin suspended 2 games.

Fair enough...but it didn't have to come to that in the first place...show up form the get-go and all of this could've been avoided.

Easier said than done but that's what happens when you take something for granted...but then again, I'm still not convinced that Phoenix really ever like(d) the Coyotes enough to take them for granted.

A fuckin joke. He already got tossed once this year for a boarding hit on Kaleta and a his knee-to-knee hit that got him suspended.

Ovie should have gotten between 5 and10 games for that. Matt Cooke should have gotten 10-15 for his chickenshit act.

I thought the match penalty for the Kaleta hit was rescinded?
In either case...actually surprised he got anything.

Cue all the foil-wearing nut jobs who believe the 'Penguins favored by the NHL' bullshit who will point out Ovy got two more games than Cooke.

DOLA

speaking of "foil wearing" , I don't know if I saw this posted

The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, PA - Chiefs spark disappointment, but not shock

Wow, that's not enough. He should have gotten 4-5. I guess it was halved because he is a superstar.

The thing that saved the Oilers was their history. If you switch the on-ice results between the Jets and the Oilers during their mutual time in the league, right now Winnipeg still has a team and Oiler fans are still trying to decide if it's ok to cheer for the Flames or not.

You are probably right about that...because 99% of us are still clinging to that history and the hope that we can reclaim even just a little of bit of it!!

Oops, I don't remember the old Jets arena much. I just remember when the new one was built, I thought the attendance would have gone up but it didn't really.

Comcast/DirecTV agree on deal- Versus back on Direct

Thank God...I was getting worried as we got closer to the playoffs. That, and I missed Brian Engblom's mullet.

The attendance for what? The Moose? They don't even open the upper decks for most Moose games in the new arena if I remember right, so even if the new arena was bigger the attendance figures wouldn't have moved.

Not that I've been to many Moose games, I just cannot get into that team. I'd much prefer a WHL team over the AHL to be honest.

He got rid of it.

Not really. Winnipeg's attendance dropped from 13k to 11k for the Jets' lame duck season of 1995-96, a year in which they made the playoffs, (barely). Once you're being told the team is leaving, I wouldn't bother spending the money.

I thought I read somewhere when it first opened that the max capacity was something like 1-2K higher than the old Arena. I've been to two Moose games, one being a playoff game a couple of years ago. It was OK, but not the Jets.

What an utter load of shite.

I'm glad Versus is back on DTV, don't get me wrong, but I can't believe the misinformation/disingenuousness of the news reports about why this happened. The line between PR and news blurs, yet again.

The typical explanation:

Quote:

According to three sources who had information about the negotiations but who could not speak publicly, the high profile of hockey after the Olympics as well as anticipation for the upcoming cycling season where Versus will televise both the Tour of California and Tour de France where Lance Armstrong is expected to race, played a part in a contract agreement being reached.

You know what not ONE of these articles discusses? The little matter of THIS:


Gee, I wonder if one had to do with the other...

Not necessarily, since that incredibly stupid ruling seems destined for appeal (unless they've just decided to say fuck it & roll over since I saw the initial reaction stories).

The timing is too coincidental to not be related. Given how quickly this happened, my guess is they had already agreed to do this if the ruling came down against the cable companies, or they just rolled over this weekend. Sorry, but I doubt the Tour de France really factored much into this.

Although I'd be curious... what kind of ratings did Versus get for college football games (in, say, 2008, while on DTV) as compared to stuff like hockey or bike races? I remember seeing the Stanford upset of USC on Versus that year. My guess is college football is so popular that it hurt Versus more to be off of DTV during the fall then it would have this spring. But that's just a guess.

i think th tour de france and stanley cup playoffs played a big role too, though. there were a lot of us out there watching hockey games online, which sucked. wouldve been a big deal if no directv viewers could watch playoff hockey

would like to see a numbers breakdown though of who won. or who wanted what money before and what the settlement was in the end

Was at the Flyers game on Saturday with the last-second goal to win. Not a Flyers fan, but it was my first hockey game since I was about 4 or 5.

Chicago's Brian Campbell out 6-8 weeks thanks to Ovechkin's hit.

It almost had to be a factor since it's the most watched show on the network (which ranks 61st out of 74 carried by DTV)


This article references their dismal 0.3 rating in 2009 being flat from the previous year but down by 7.6% to 326,000 total viewers for the 25 game average.

That's fewer viewers than even this past weekend's Izod Indy Car race that aired on Sunday morning, almost as bad as the NHL (which, incidentally, actually had ratings declines for the first couple of post-Olympic games on Versus, no sign of any bounce for anyone on any network).

As one article put it, having your football games on Versus is about like having them air from Garth & Wayne's basement. It's a non-entity for the network, a non-entity for DTV.

I still think if an action is worthy of a suspension, and that action causes another player to miss time, the offender should be forced to miss every day that the affected player does, and that the suspension should be added to the end of that.

Bullshit that Ovechkin misses two games while Campbell misses potentially two months.

Say Campbell gets up and plays the rest of the game and is just fine...should Ovie be suspended?

The punishment should fit the intent, not the result. If it's determined that Ovie intended to hit Campbell from behind while he was defenseless then Ovie should get "X" number of games regardless of whether or not Campbell was hurt.

I agree, especially in instances where a player misses a lot of time. I call this the Todd Bertuzzi rule (and not the Matt Cooke rule).

Thats so easy to exploit though, youd need 3rd party doctors that both teams would be willing to agree with or else you have some scrub put on IR while Crosby cant play in the playoffs (totally made up example obviously)

Am I the only one who really doesn't think the Ovechkin hit was that bad? I hate the way he generally plays to hurt people and I think he's the second dirtiest player in the league this year (after Cam Janssen) and I have absolutely no problem with him being suspended in general. But I have to say at first glance that hit looked unfortunate rather than really malicious. If Campbell gets back up (hell if Campbell isn't such a good player) it's nowhere near a suspension.

You'd think news like this would have posted in this thread before now

What's the rule in terms of a goal off the glove/hand? Is it like the skate/leg?

The Canes get beat down by the Bruins at home, 5-2, effectively reducing their very slim playoff chances to none (down 10 with 13 to play and Washington's coming in on Thursday). On the plus side, Cole showed up for a game for the first time in a good long while (injuries and general ineffectiveness most of this season) and Jamie McBain made his NHL debut and got an assist for a hard slapper that rebounded to Cole for a goal.

It was a longshot to make the playoffs, of course, but I'm glad they didn't just roll over and die after that horrendous start. Certainly made the second half of the season much more interesting. Gotta hope now that the teams around them keep winning so they can get that number three pick in the draft (who knows, the Leafs are four back...there's hope yet for #2, even). Will certainly be an interesting offseason this year to see who goes from amongst the veterans and how many of the youngsters we've got make the permanent jump from the AHL next year.

No. I wouldn't have a problem with a boarding penalty, but sometimes guys just land awkwardly (as Travis Roy's example drilled into us up here). It's not in the same league as something like Cooke's or Janssen's headhunting.Just wait until ND games get moved over... I'm sure those numbers will skyrocket to idk.... 0.8.Barry Melrose is doing his best to keep up hockey's reputation.

Not 100% on the true rule, but short version, yes.

I think they are even more likely to disallow one off the hand though. While you can redirect a puck with your skate, as long as you don't kick, if you intentionally reach out for the puch, chances are it would be overturned.

A puck bouncing off a guy's glove in front would be treated same as any of deflection, good goal. A puck off a glove where he waves at it, probably getting called back.

DOLA

Three observations from the Pens-Devils

1) Devils really should wear the red white and green more

2) Pens jump out to 1-0 lead...only to turnover the puck twice to give up goals on breakaways.

3) I get it's the thing to do, boo Crosby when he touches the puck. At MSG, fine. Wachovia, fine. But when 30% of the seats are empty in the building, it doesn't have the same effect.

I can't even hear the booing. Awful.

My boyfriend Parise just made the score 4-1. LLLLLOOOOVVVEE IT!

Fixed

Also...Pens plan of attack after going up 1-0 should have been continually ice the puck. Devils couldn't generate any breakaways if the puck was already in Pittsburgh's zone.

LOL, good point.

Oh, and bite me. :)

Colin 'Toothbrush' White

I ain't using him like a toothbrush.

Maybe. But, again, comes down to - is it suspension worthy? If it's not, none of the rest applies.

If it is, then you issue the suspension, but also require an impartial medical opinion on the affected player. If that opinion requires the affected player to miss time, so does the offender - and THEN the suspension starts.

If the other team refuses third-party medical access to their player, then the suspension is served normally, no extra time added.

But like I say - all of that assumes that the league considers the action in question to be worthy of a suspension.

I will just go ahead and state that the length of time a player is injured for should have little or no bearing on how long the offender is suspended. If someone smashes his stick over my head and I miss 1 game or 100 games, he should basically get the same suspension (give or take a small margin). I don't remember ever telling criminals that they have to be in jail until the person they harmed is healed, so why should a hockey player?

I also like the idea that was floated around by Edzo that if you have a player suspended by a headshot his roster spot should not be filled so you have to play a man short. So instead of getting someone called up, you screw your team over for a few games by doing something stupid.