NHL knows its place, and its fans

AT THIS TIME last year, the Flyers were still neck-deep in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The final was under way against the Chicago Blackhawks and the notion that two hockey cities were in a contest for the great and iconic silver trophy was unquestioned. To be in the middle of it was to experience what the NHL has always hoped to be: not dominant like the Eagles and the NFL, and not necessarily threaded into the city's fiber like the Phillies and baseball, but real and meaningful nonetheless - real and meaningful and recognized for the spectacle that it is.

With that . . .

. . . same time, next year.

It is Tuesday night, about 26 hours before the start of the Cup finals between the Boston Bruins and Vancouver Canucks. It also is a day when the NHL has announced the shift of one of its franchises, from Atlanta to Winnipeg - a news event that happens less than once a decade. The television is tuned to ESPN, to the 6 p.m. "SportsCenter."

And . . . nothing.

Not a word about hockey.

Not one.

It becomes a game of sorts, watching the scroll on the left side of the screen that announces the segments that are coming next. That ESPN was going to spend a goodly portion of the hourlong show pumping up the start of the NBA Finals, which were to be aired on its corporate sister, ABC, was entirely understandable. ESPN, long ago, acknowledged that its news shows were a promotional vehicle as well as a journalistic enterprise.

But to keep watching that scroll . . . and to see a bunch of NBA, followed by a bunch of Jim Tressel, followed by a bunch more NBA, with a smattering of baseball and the French Open, and then a bunch more NBA, and, well, that was it. At which point, ESPN switched to coverage of a baseball game and "SportsCenter" shifted over to ESPN2.

With that, the quest could not be abandoned.

When would they get to the NHL?

If you look at the four major leagues, look at them in terms of annual revenue generated, you get this kind of a rough breakdown:

NFL, $9 billion.

MLB, $7 billion.

NBA, $4 billion.

NHL, $3 billion.

Seeing as how about 20 percent of the NHL revenue comes from Canada, compared probably to about 5 percent of the other sports' revenue - this is total back-of-the-envelope guesstimation - you would have to make some adjustments. But even at that, the NHL receives nowhere near the coverage it merits based upon the money it generates.