TV Ratings and "Visiting Canadian Team Attedances"

First, I come bearing an article that is two weeks old today that I somehow missed. Read it here

Three things caught my eye.

1. The New York Rangers and the Los Angeles Kings, the two largest NHL TV markets, are outperforming themselves from last year by 33 %. Cool beans.
2. Buffalo leads the way with an 8.9 local rating, followed by Pittsburgh with a 5.7 - This helps make my theory true that although I do live in Central New York State, there is really nothing, and I mean nothing, to do in Western New York.
3. I would love to see some Canadian figures besides HNIC. I understand everyone and their family watches it on Saturday nights, for christ sake I hang out with a bunch of idiots who like basketball and they even watch it with me on Saturday nights. If anyone has a link or info on that, please send it along (that is, if anyone is reading this by now).

Moving on, I've been keeping my eye on a thread on HF Boards called "Visiting Canadian Team Attendances" ... The thread basically turned into "well I hate drunk visiting fans who have too much fun and get punched in the face..." So today I did something about it (you da man Rob!), here's what I said:

I don't understand why this is even an issue. In weak markets you'll see a fluctuation because of a certain team or player coming into town, but in moderate to strong markets it shouldn't be about that. The fact of the matter is more Canadians would be willing to spend money on tickets if, for sake of example, there were 15 US teams and 15 Canadian teams.

The Average US home attendance is 16,638.71 (totaled up home averages from http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance)

The Average Canadian home attendance (out of curiosity, because obviously with only 6 teams its going to be higher no matter what) is 19,033.67 (http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance)

Granted, some US clubs have come a long way (Chicago recently dethroned Montreal for #1 in attendance this year), but the least of their worries are poor attendance numbers from visiting Canadian teams.

Yeah, I quote myself from time to time, I hold my opinion in high esteem (kidding). Now obviously, like I said, the averages isn't going to be fair because n (number of teams) is only 6 for Canada, while the US has 24 clubs. But my thought in all of this is relocation. In my humble opinion, I would say that a team in Hamilton, Winnipeg, or Quebec City could at least pull the US Average, but my bet would be the over. But that's just me, and that is without talk of financing a new stadium.

Alright, enough is enough. I'm starving. Maybe more later, I dunno.

Rob