It's now or never for the NHL and NBC!

Well if you didn't watch the USA v Canada gold medal hockey game in the olympics you were in the minority. The gold medal game drew a 17 + rating on NBC. What does this mean? It means that 17 million tv's were on watching the game not including bar's or restaurants. This is the third highest rating in only behind the NCAA football national championship game and the Super Bowl.
With that type of interest for the gold medal game and the type of game that was played it sets up perfectly for the NHL to take advantage and elevate the interest in their game. One place it can do that is on NBC who was the beneficiary of the coverage of the olympics and saw first hand the excitement around the game. Both of these entity's need to capitalize for their own reasons. The NHL has taken a huge leap backwards since the strike a few years back and has tried to recover but has yet to do so. With the majority of their games, nationally, on versus ( a channel a lot of people don't get or know about ), the game has had a hard time trying to grow again. But with all of the young talented american players and the intensity of that gold medal game the interest in the sport seems to be at its highest, its now or never.
NBC currently is the only major netword that broadcasts NHL games and that is on their game of the week broadcast on sunday afternoons. Since they did broadcast the olympics and were the network that received that great rating they need to promote this sport a little more. Use those familiar names that people became acustome too during the olympics and you could see a hike in the ratings for regular season NHL games.
These last few months of the NHL regular season and the playoffs is the final chance for the NHL to get back to where it was in the 90's. They haven't shown a great promice to be able to promote themselves but if they can't capitalize on this opportunity that was handed to them by these great olympics than the game we love could be in big big trouble. I hope Gary Bettman and his staff see this opportunity and jump on it properly because it would be a real shame if the game doesn't grow. Not to mention if the game doesn't see a hike it could be the last we see of professional hockey players in the olympics and that would be the worst thing possible.