The attraction known as the NHL Winter Classic will be coming to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on January 2^nd. The Winter Classic has become the premier event for the regular season of the NHL. This is only part of the reason why the NHL is on the upswing in terms of popularity and ratings. This year’s playoffs are up 12% from last year because of the close intense play that has taken place throughout. The next step that the NHL needs to make in order to become relevant is to have a nationally televised game that takes place at night, on NBC.

I have had this idea for about a year now and game 7 between the Sharks and Red Wings made me realize that this idea would most certainly work.

NBC has done a fantastic job with the Sunday night game for the NFL. The ratings last year were through the roof, having a nationally televised game in prime time helped reach a bigger audience, which is exactly what the NHL has to do if they want to expand their product.

After the NFL wraps up the playoffs there is a gaping hole of programming on Sunday nights, which usually gets filled up with Dateline and then a new show at 10 o’ clock which seems to only last a season, The Cape was the victim of that time slot last year. Instead of putting in millions of dollars to come up with a new concept for a television show, less money could be put into sending out the production team to film a game.

The schedule for the NHL would have to change a little bit, there couldn’t be any other games played on Sunday night, which would mean that all of the Sunday games come late February would be played during the day. This would allow NBC to create a show similar to Hockey night in Canada and Football Night in America.

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Tags: NHL, NHL playoffs, Stanley Cup, Sunday Night Hockey