TSN: 58% of Canadians are not watching/paying attention to the Stanley Cup Finals.

[johnnyonthspot]

People have better shit to do.

The playoffs last too f***ing long. No reason for the SCF to start as late as it did.

EDIT: Also, 42 per cent ish means there are about 16 million Canadians paying attention AND THAT'S A LOT!!!!

About 15 million watched the 2014 Gold Medal game and that was considered historic.

Framing that fact 2 in 5 Canadians is watching as a bad thing is just classic, bad sports journalism. I always hated sports reporters when I was in the biz.

Agreed. Bad journalism trying to make something from nothing. Naturally, if the Leaf's were in it (Heaven forbid) half of Canada would watch hoping they lose !

 

[Voight]

Instead, I am playing

Spoiler

Old School Runescape

Where????????????????????????????????

Meet me at the Grand Exchange?

 

[Voight]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1800604335627235470

Get it together Americans

Numbers would be bigger if an O6 American team, Philly or Pittsburgh made it, not surprised the US numbers are low.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Numbers would be bigger if an O6 American team, Philly or Pittsburgh made it, not surpassed the US numbers are low.

Canada’s numbers are always about 10x the US numbers, by population, that’s not new.

 

[Ace Card Bedard]

Its june and took a week to start the finals. Not many care at this point. Hockey needs to be done by end of may

100% agreed,

It's 90 degrees out and we're only at Game 2?

 

[Nogatco Rd]

I understand perfectly, I just don’t care. Yes, he is talented and never suggested he wasn’t skilled. After watching him against Van he looked average and one dimensional.

There are some hockey fans who simply don’t buy into the Connor McDavid hype and I am certainly one of them.

Great username

 

[Mr Kot]

Where????????????????????????????????

Meet me at the Grand Exchange?

Come to wilderness, bring your best gear. Ignore all those guys just outside your view, they won't hurt you.

 

[coolboarder]

End the NHL season in mid-May and you will have higher percent of Canadians watching. Now it's in June and many people wants outdoor activities since Summer in Canada is pretty much short. That is why we need to start the NHL season in September and we end the season on a reasonable timeframe. People have lives to live and not going to waste their time if their team is not in it.

 

[Axe Man]

I’m not going to bother to read all of the posts so someone may have said this already but some people care more about their favorite team than they do the sport itself. When my team is eliminated I tend to lose interest. I’ve been watching the finals a little bit but it’s not must see TV to me. The same situation could apply to other sports as well.

 

[pth2]

Cant speak for all of Canada but here in Van, almost everyone i know through the hockey community ( beer league, coaching, friends etc) are not watching the games at all. They might tune in to Sportcentre at the end of the night to see the score and highlights but thats about it. Summer weather is here with plenty of things to do and its hard to convince people to watch a game that their team is not playing in.

Close to the other end of the country here.... and it's the same story: summer is here, and it's damned short, so if it's taking advantage of a nice late afternoon out or a hockey game, it's going to be the outdoors.

I've often thought I'd rather have the season start and end a month earlier - training camp in August, Cup won before June 1st.

I wonder if it's an American thing - Americans, in the South in particular, don't have as pronounced seasons as Canada and the northern US so maybe June evenings aren't as precious.

End the NHL season in mid-May and you will have higher percent of Canadians watching. Now it's in June and many people wants outdoor activities since Summer in Canada is pretty much short. That is why we need to start the NHL season in September and we end the season on a reasonable timeframe. People have lives to live and not going to waste their time if their team is not in it.

I swear I didn't read this before posting.

 

[mkatcherin00]

90% of them are Canuck fans having the fear of death that Edmonton had a chance to win a cup lol. Smaller chance now. Their lives would be ruined and CGY's if Edmonton won that thing.

Small consolation being an Oilers fan was kicking the snot out of Vancouver 2 rounds ago. Those fans dominate Twitter.

Imagine just crap talking a team daily, who dusted you 2 rounds ago

 

[Marty Party]

I missed both games. Completely forgot about them. Irony is, I watched a lot of the playoffs all the the way to the conference finals.

 

[Andrei79]

Quite simple why I’m not watching.

I couldn’t take another minute of Sportsnet coverage. Listening to Simpson is agonizing and it was clear in the Van/Edm series they only had 29 and 97 talking points.

Also, Edmonton are boring when you realize all they are is a really good power play with 2 elite players. No idea why McDavid has such appeal I find his personality utterly cringe worthy and his play is very one dimensional.

You can not be a fan of how McDavid plays.

But to not understand the appeal of someone who plays like he does is being deliberately looking for a reaction. He's an incredibly exciting player to watch.

 

[Grifter3511]

The East Coast is definitely not watching. I mean puck drop is at 8:20. You might watch the first period once the baby asleep. But when McLean comes on between the first and second, it's time to go night-night for sure.

Late starts are gonna kill the NHL.

What time do people go to bed? I'm a middle aged man with two kids, a traditional 9-5 (more or less) and I am pretty much never in bed before 11.

I would MUCH rather be watching hockey from 8-11 than the 5-8 it currently is for me.

 

[Grifter3511]

90% of them are Canuck fans having the fear of death that Edmonton had a chance to win a cup lol. Smaller chance now. Their lives would be ruined and CGY's if Edmonton won that thing.

Small consolation being an Oilers fan was kicking the snot out of Vancouver 2 rounds ago. Those fans dominate Twitter.

Imagine just crap talking a team daily, who dusted you 2 rounds ago

I don't think this term means what you think it does.

 

[Javaman]

Someone needs to pitch this ad campaign to Boston Pizza: "f*** those other Canadian teams. My team wins the Cup or the NHL is dead to me."

Free beer to those who have a tattoo of their eliminated team. Free food too if they can only show the tattoo in a private room.

 

[CascadiaPenguin]

They poll'd people , you're talking about network viewership which can be more inaccurate as alot of their numbers are counted by the TV just being on in the background while people are doing whatever else in their homes.

Yeah, polling involving telephone landlines sounds like an amazingly accurate and complete statistical snapshot of contemporary habits. Find another human you know that was polled, or even knows anyone polled, I double-dog dare ya'!

 

[WestCoast CyberG]

You can not be a fan of how McDavid plays.

But to not understand the appeal of someone who plays like he does is being deliberately looking for a reaction. He's an incredibly exciting player to watch.

Actually it is an opinion which you can disagree with, I understand it’s not the majority, but try and understand how this works - I personally can’t stand the player and find he is overhyped by SN/TSN clowns.

 

[JP Mick]

Cant speak for all of Canada but here in Van, almost everyone i know through the hockey community ( beer league, coaching, friends etc) are not watching the games at all. They might tune in to Sportcentre at the end of the night to see the score and highlights but thats about it. Summer weather is here with plenty of things to do and its hard to convince people to watch a game that their team is not playing in.

Imagine that same weather all year and people would rip on the Panthers fans when the team sucked.

 

[Another Empty Netter]

Cant speak for all of Canada but here in Van, almost everyone i know through the hockey community ( beer league, coaching, friends etc) are not watching the games at all. They might tune in to Sportcentre at the end of the night to see the score and highlights but thats about it. Summer weather is here with plenty of things to do and its hard to convince people to watch a game that their team is not playing in.

The evergreen excuse for British Columbians who dip from sports or politics

 

[JP Mick]

The NHL waiting six days to start the finals - for no reason whatsoever - probably didn't help their cause.

That, and as mentioned, a lot of Canadians are probably sick of the bullshit "Canada's team" blabbering that our networks are trying to force-feed us every day.

There was a reason if you cared enough to ask. It was TV and arena scheduling.

 

[Kimota]

Yes I agree its why we have one of the dumbest fanbases in the world , so many of them don't watch\follow the league.

It's more like the Habs means so much more than the rest. More than the sport itself. That's what happens when you root for a dynasty. It's like rooting for the WWE over every other wrestling organization.

But even with that, as whole I think I'm less interested in the NHL that before. It has changed so much, not as physical as it was in the past, not as much rivalries and "heat". That's what they wanted to "change the culture". The NHL and Sportsnet has hurt my enjoyment of the game. They killed the tradition, esp, here in Canada when they damaged HNIC beyond repair.

When the Avs faced the Wings in the 90s, everybody over here was watching even though the games were late and it was not Canadian teams. Go back to THAT, NHL! Cause now there are too many alternatives as far as streaming shows or movies.

 

[me2]

50% of Canadians don't even care about the NHL teams in their own city. Not everyone is a hockey fan.

 

[Crosby2010]

I am not sure if it is any different other years. 42% are paying attention is actually quite a large amount of people.

A couple of factors. The economy is downright abysmal in most places in Canada. With people having difficulty paying their bills and paying for groceries this might be a bad time for people to watch McDavid possibly win his first Cup since there are other issues on their mind.

Secondly, I have no idea why the NHL does this every year but their postseason goes too long. It all starts with the beginning of the season. The first game of this NHL season was on October 10th. Why? Why not start the NHL season on October 1st? It coincides with MLB ending their regular season and it gets you the jump on the NBA. The NHL playoffs didn't start until April 20th. And there is no reason to wait 6 days to start the Cup final. Start it three days later, nothing more. It isn't the Super Bowl. The weather is and can be sweltering in parts of Canada at this point, let alone warmer parts of the U.S. There is a reason viewership is lower in September in the NFL. The weather is still nice, people hit up the final time they can go to the beach. Ditto in Canada, this is beach weather now, campfire weather, camping weather, etc. The Cup final should be done even if it hits Game 7 in early June.

Also, look back at how things were done in the past. 1991 the Cup final went 6 games and was done May 25th. 1992 it was a sweep and people lost their minds because it was June 1st (most notably because of the 10-day player strike near the end of the season). 1993 the playoffs started on the 18th of April as well and ended June 9th. Why did it end sooner than what would be Game 5 of the Cup final this year on June 18th? Because they started the Cup final three days after the LA/Toronto series ended. They also had all of the games two days apart, even with the long travel of L.A. to Montreal. Why do all of this three days in between games stuff? It isn't needed.

 

[Dr Pepper]

There was a reason if you cared enough to ask. It was TV and arena scheduling.

Bettman wasn't returning my emails.

Also, here's a pic of the Panthers arena schedule. Looked fairly wide open to me.