Can Cincinnati become a hockey town?

The Redhawks were on fire this year, just falling short of making it to the Frozen Four, while the Cyclones drew the highest attendance in the history of hockey in our town and qualified for the ECHL playoffs.

I think we should give hockey a go and our sports fan should rally around the cause similiar to UC football. But I do think hockey needs to be played at the Cincinnati Gardens to be successful and more fan-friendly (but that's another blog over a beer as my good friend, Tom, would say).

I read an interesting story in the sports section of the New York Times about how the NHL is reaching out to their avid with a new seven-channel digital network. Brilliant! The NHL has already been using youtube.com to post highlights and this should prove to be very successful. In another brilliant move, the NHL kept their on-line rights so this will be an extremely lucrative revenue stream.

Here are some interesting fan numbers: NBC's NHL games average 1.5 million viewers up 11 percent over last year; and the New Year's Day snow bowl between the Pens and the Sabres drew 3.75 million.

Most impressive, the NHL knows they have 53 million avid fans. Just think if each of these fans sent 20 emails with the new NHL network info. I wonder how many of those fans live in Cincinnati?

Here are some quick links to read more:
http://www.nhl.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/sports/hockey/06sandomir.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin