Pilson's comment is not a knock on hockey's fan base. The reality is that it's much cheaper to join the local YMCA basketball league than it is to join an organized hockey team. And it's much more convenient to shoot hoops or to throw a football around at the neighborhood park than it is to head to the nearest hockey rink and strap on the skates to practice a slap shot.

But the cause for alarm isn't so much that the NHL is the runt of the "Big Four" in ­national television appeal - the real cause for concern is that over the past few years the league has been losing its already minuscule national television audience. And last season was no different. In one of the most intriguing postseasons ever, the Edmonton Oilers became the first number-eight seed to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals; they came within one game of winning it all. Yet, NBC and Versus (formerly OLN) posted an abysmal average rating of 1.8 for the seven-game series. Game 2 of the Stanley Cup on Versus earned lower ratings than a rained-out­ baseball game on ESPN, and NBC's ratings for Game 7 were 21 percent lower than ABC's ratings for Game 7 in 2004.

"There's nothing that can seriously influence the ratings right now," Pilson says. "They might go up or down, depending on who's playing. If you have teams like Detroit, Chicago, or New York in the Stanley Cup, then, yes, you'll see the ratings go up some, but nothing that will stand out too much."

"I've heard people say that parity backfired, because a big-market team didn't make it to the finals," Versus president Gavin Harvey counters. "But the way I see it, we couldn't have asked for a better Stanley Cup, because it was the two best teams playing a competitive series that went seven games."