And I'm Back...

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas. Mine was a good one, with a walk home from the bar last night at 2 AM.

So here are the stats from Tuesday's games...

1. Ottawa @ Philadelphia - 19,578 (Sellout) - Flyers win 6-4. The Flyers get their 8th sellout and are 7-1-2 in their last 10.
2. Dallas @ Toronto - 19,269 (Sellout) - Stars win 8-2. Nothing like saying, have a happy holidays, fans! by getting embarrassed like that.
3. Anaheim @ Calgary - 19,289 (Sellout) - Flames win 4-3. Another sellout in Calgary, along with a great game as well.
4. Vancouver @ San Jose - 17,496 (Sellout) - Sharks win 5-0. A perfect holiday sendoff for Sharks fans.
5. Boston @ New Jersey - 16,305 - Bruins win 2-0. A much needed bump in attendance as the last two games at the rock didnt climb over 15K.
6. Los Angeles @ Columbus - 15,145 - Kings win 3-0. Only the 4th game this year for the Blue Jackets to play infront of a crowd over 15K.
7. Atlanta @ NYI - 14,227 - Thrashers win 4-2. All I have to say is, support The Lighthouse project.
8. Washington @ NYR - 18,200 (Sellout) - Caps win 5-4 in OT. This may have been an actual sellout, as the 100's were packed Tuesday in MSG. As for the game, ugh...
9. St. Louis @ Detroit - 20,066 (Sellout) - Wings win 4-1. Wings get their first sellout in 5 games, and put on a good show.
10. Tampa Bay @ Pittsburgh - 17,064 (Sellout) - Bolts win 2-0. The Pens get their 5th sellout of the season and then let 2 easy points walk.
11. Nashville @ Florida - 14,703 - Panthers win 3-0. Ugh, things were going so well! 3 out of their last 4 with over 16K ! So much for that...
12. Carolina @ Minnesota - 18,568 (Sellout) - Wild win 3-2. Another sellout in The State of Hockey.
13. Phoenix @ Colorado - 14,625 - Avs win 5-4 in OT. Apparently Avs fans are more fair-weathered than I thought.

Tuesday's Average: 17,272 - Great Average considering some of the teams hosting games. Not to mention its over the 17K bar.

Total Sellouts: 8 out of 13. Happy Holidays, NHL! Good stuff, over the 50% bar clearly.

Finally for now, The 2010 Olympic Hockey Schedule via Puck the Media. Along with some analysis, as well:

Right off the bat, no one can be too happy about the Gold Medal Game airing at 10PM. Is NBC going to let the closing ceremony telecast get buried past midnight for a hockey game? Or is it going to get dumped off on cable? More than likely, unless Team USA makes a run, the latter.

That said, NBC has plenty of opportunity to give hockey it’s spot in the limelight. The first two Team USA games are in primetime on the east coast, and will likely eat up a lot of airtime in the typically figure skating-lite first week of the Olympics.

As far as the scheduling format goes, it’s a whole lot better than the confusing, overlapping schedule at Torino in 2006. There’s only over-lap in the knockout phases of the tourney, and just barely. The games are spread out to the point where puckheads can get a break, but not get too bored waiting.

From a money/personnel perspective, NBC can now do hockey on the fairly cheap in Vancouver, having used about 523 different announcer in Italy. They’ll likely need two teams, one will almost definitely be Emrick/Olczyk, as Pierre McGuire can only work exclusively for CTV in Canada during the games. Who does that second team comprise of? Will it be Al Michaels, returning to olympic hockey? Can John Davidson get a breather from working in St. Louis to call games? Where does Bill Clement fit in, considering he still does olympic work for NBC? Who works the women’s games? It leaves a lot of open questions, particularly

I’m not going to post it, but on the women’s side, Team USA will likely not get the same chance to shine for the ladies that the men do. Most of their games are at 10PM and at the smaller, UBC arena.

Good stuff, I agree with all that they mention.

More later...