Yeah, but with the lions not being on tv, that's an nfl rule, not a detroit rule. The only people who enforce the blackhawks black out are the hawks themeselves.

Every once in awhile when the bears are really really bad (kind of like this season, although it wasn't an issue this year) the bears will threaten the fans with "buy tickets or the game will be blacked out by nfl rules."

Guess what. It never happens. Here's why.

The local fox station (the bears being an nfc team means that 6 out of their 8 home games are on fox.) Makes huge money on the commercials that they sell during bears games because Chicago is a HUGE market and the bears get great ratings. If the game isn't on they lose that revenue so if there's 1000 seats left that haven't been sold, they'll eat the 40,000-45,000$ that it costs to buy up those seats themselves. They still end up making money on the deal.

Ya, Detroit and Montreal have the best average ticket sales. They are in the 20,000's. Toronto is in third with 29,210 average ticket sales this year.

either im reading that wrong....

or theres a typo....

but wouldnt THOES numbers make toronto higher? :p

yeah, he meant 19 210

but if the Air Canada Center held 30 000 people, the Leafs would most likely still sell out most games. Toronto is hockey.

My bad! replace the 29 with a 19... lol

no more so then Montreal or Detroit. :p

id have to say thoes are the 3 biggest places for hockey fans.

very nice considering they make up half the original 6.

3 of my fav teams.

Ottawa would probably be better for the fans if the arena wasn't in the ****tiest possible place. Then there's teams like New Jersey, who couldn't sell out an arena if the arena was the size of a car.

At least Edmonton has the best ice. :cool:

I disagree

Toronto is much more of a hockey city than Montreal...and to be honest, no American city can touch Canada's passion for the game

montreal as of late as gotten a little less into it.

canada as a country. no one can touch.

as for toronto. i disagree that they are the #1 hockey city.

Quote:

so once we win our game tomorrow we'll be a point and 2 wins ahead

i aint gunna say a word. ;)

Before the United Center, when it was still the Chcago Stadium, absoluty nothing touched chicago as far as hockey fans were concerned. The Blackhawks pretty much entered every single game in that staidum leading 1-0 simply because of the fans.

The loss of the stadium, combined with the fact that the hawks aren't on tv, and the fact that the team sucked from 97-2000 pretty much means no one cares anymore, and there's usually only 14-16 thousand people at hawk games every night.

yea. quite often i wish instead of destroying a stadium just to build a new one........ that they could spend the money on a total resoration of the old stadium. to make it look like its brand new.

new stadiums are cool and all. but they never have the feel of the old ones

:D Damnit. The Canucks soooo had that game. Oh well, our goals were much more beautiful. And damn detroit. I was watching the game recap and was hoping for St Louis.

as for the hockey town debate, no one can beat Toronto + Montreal. I have to say, Toronto though is a bit more hockey crazy. But, 50 years ago I'd have to say Montreal. Like I said before, as long as Canadian teams perform well i'm all good. The Oilers and Flames need it more than anybody. And the fed government just cancelled the extra funding.:( Which, is a iffy subject. I think there's always better things to spend money on than sports.

God dammit, I don't know why we even bother playing the Stars anymore, we NEVER, EVER win. We'd be much better of just forfeiting before the game starts and resting our players.

And as for fans of hockey, as noted you gotta give credit to Toronto and Montreal, Detroit's there too. Of course, Canada as a whole is easily the greatest though. :) During the gold medal game against USA IN USA you'd think it was in Canada, the crowd was singing 'Oh Canada' near the end.