Saturdays Alright for Hockey

Good Afternoon. After a day of snowboarding, shoveling, and a night of too much drinking, I return sore and hungover. 12 Games last night...

1. Carolina @ Boston - 17,565 (Sellout) - Bruins win 4-2. Back to back to back sellouts for Boston, a first for this season. After a rocky start attendance wise to the season, the Bruins will continue to enjoy packed houses as long as they are top dog in the east.
2. Washington @ Philadelphia - 19,857 (Sellout) - Flyers win 7-1. The Flyers are hot and the Philly faithful are reaping the benefits of their constant support. Last night of the 7th sellout in Philly this season.
3. Buffalo @ Montreal - 21,273 (Sellout) - Montreal wins 4-3 in OT. A nice little comeback by the Habs and the 21K+ saw a great game.
4. Dallas @ Ottawa - 19,486 - Sens win 5-4 in OT. The Saturday matchup helped a bit for attendance, as the crowd reaches over 19K for only the second time in 6 games in Ottawa. Its starting to look like Ottawa has a share of fair-weather fans.
5. Toronto @ Pittsburgh - 17,053 - Leafs win 7-3. Nothing gave me more joy as I saw that about 8,000 of the Pens faithful had left after the 2nd period of this one.
6. Tampa Bay @ Atlanta - 14,395 - Thrashers win 4-3. Another not so impressive figure out of Atlanta.
7. Los Angeles @ Detroit - 19,784 - Wings win 6-4. An open game with over 60 shots, anyone at the Joe got a great game to watch.
8. NYI @ Nashville - 16,457 - Preds win 1-0. A not so open game, but the marketing department is doing its job in Nashville. Only around 700 short of a sellout, not bad for bascially a non hockey market.
9. Minnesota @ St. Louis - 19,150 (Sellout) - Blues in 4-2. With their 11th sellout, the fan base for the Blues must be solid and growing, as the team struggles in last place in the West.
10. Colombus @ Phoenix - 16,125 - Coyotes win 2-0. With a current average of 14,716, the Coyotes clearly benefit from the Saturday night fixture.
11. Chicago @ Vancouver - 18,630 (Sellout) - Blackhawks win 3-1. Another sellout and the Canucks could have used Sundin in this one.
12. NYR @ San Jose - 17,496 (Sellout) - Sharks win 3-2. The sellouts continue in San Jose, as I was very pleased that my Blueshirts played a solid game against one of the top dogs in the West.

LNA: 18,106 - The first average for a Saturday on the blog, and I'm not sure what to expect. For the weeknights I'm putting the bar at 17,250; anything above that should be considered a reasonable success. For the weekends, in my opinion, I think the NHL should be shooting for around 18K. So, at 18,106, this weekend was a solid weekend for the league.

Sellouts: 6/12. For the weeknights, I put the bar at 50%. Anything above that is definitely a success. For the weekends, I think it should be around 65%. So a little disappointing, Detroit and Ottawa both came close, but couldn't top out their buildings.

More later...