Hockey - The Second Most Popular Professional Sport in North America (No foolin').

For a moment, de-program your head from the great hype machines of ESPN, SI and Fox, and their single focus on anything major that makes up highlight reels: Hockey is the second most popular professional sport in North America, after baseball.

While pop puck pundits in the majors prognosticate the NHL's demise, there are over 127 teams in minor league hockey in 2004-2005, with another league and expected expansions of other leagues to bring in an estimated +9 teams for 2005. If a hockey league takes off in Mexico, the numbers could go as high as +15.

Minor league hockey brings in an estimated 35 million fans annually*, just three to four million less than affiliated baseball (* Some leagues do not report their attendance figures to MLN.)

When NHL hockey re-opens its doors, professional hockey will be topped only by baseball in popularity and number of games watched.

To calm aggreived football fans, the popularity of the pigskin is focused and limited: Pro football brings in large numbers to fewer pro live events, and larger television audiences than does hockey. College football would certainly be an equalizer... on the day that the colleges and NCAA admit that it's a pro sport.

If you look past the almighty tube, though, more fans turn out live in small numbers to more games in hundreds of venues each year, from San Antonio to Quebec, Long Beach, California to Long Island, New York.

Hockey is the fastest growing professional sport in North America as well. Teams open up in sunbelt cities like Macon, Austin and Odessa, where the sport might have been totally alien to the public at large a decade or more ago.

The sport succeeds where basketball fails because there is very little competition from the amateur ranks of colleges and universities in the States. There are very few universities with big-time hockey programs outside of the Northeast.

While many college hoops programs would be threatened by a successful minor league in their backyard, hockey is largely left alone by the academics.

Hockey's toughest sledding has been in Canada, where the amateur Canadian Juniors and a few semi-pro leagues dominate the landscape below the NHL.

Why Does Hockey Do So Well as a Minor League Sport?

Hockey is hard to follow on television where the puck seems to defy the cameras. There is a lot of action that leads up to the big plays that is missed by the uni-focus tube.

In arenas great and small, fans in the thousands to tens of thousands gather to watch the totality of the action up close and personal.

Minor hockey fans, on average, see more of their sport than NHL fans. A scalped ticket for the Rangers at around $35.00/seat for a regular season game should be accompanied by an oxygen mask and a disclaimer for those who suffer from agoraphobia (fear of heights) or vertigo. By contrast, $35.00 will buy some great seats for a family of five at most minor league hockey arenas.

Hockey is traditionally a blue collar sport. While the NHL has had troubles with the conversion to the champagne crowd that pump up ticket prices in the NFL and the NBA, hockey still finds a very strong audience in working towns all over North America.

What draws people in warm weather towns to Hockey?

Hockey fans start usually with transplants from colder climbs where hockey, the second national religion of Canada and selected parts of North America, is more established.

The sport picks up afficianados from fans of football, wrestling, and even monster truck rallies who like the action and the physicality of the sport.

Most hockey leagues are incredibly good at outreach as well, fostering the development or aiding youth hockey leagues in the towns where they play.

How is Minor League Hockey Organized?

There are four primary and three developing hockey leagues, for a total of seven actives.

Minor league hockey is semi-affiliated with the National Hockey League (NHL).

NHL teams own or have significant player investments in most of the American Hockey League (AHL) teams.

There are teams in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL), the Central Hockey League (CHL), and the United Hockey League (UHL) that have affiliations with NHL clubs on a case-by-case, team-by-team basis.

MLN's subjective ranking of hockey teams forms this basic class system:

AAA
American Hockey League (AHL)

AA
East Coast Hockey League (ECHL)
Central Hockey League (CHL)

A
United Hockey League (UHL)
Southeast Hockey League (SHL)
Ligue Nord-Americane du Hockey (LNAH)*
Northern Professional Hockey League(NPHL)*

*Leagues in development/rookie seasons in 2004-2005.

 

Continued...

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