If it's true they've been undervalued in their own backyard of Vancouver until very recently, it's also true they've been even less appreciated elsewhere in the NHL, with 17 franchises in the eastern time zone and a heavily-unbalanced regular season schedule.
And that's largely because you can't fully understand what you never -- or rarely -- see.
It explains in part why even seasoned hockey media types from throughout the NHL and its 26 designated television markets (DMAs) don't seem to have cracked the code on just how terrific they are. The league is already the only one among the five big leagues in North America that is so largely skewed towards New York and Toronto with a majority of its teams in the Eastern Time Zone.
The geographic concentration of the NHL and its superstars is exacerbated by its schedule, one which does not allow for fans of each club to see the other 29 teams at least once. Seventy-eight per cent of regular season play is intra-conference and almost 30 per cent intra-divisional.
When I first raised the issue in the editorial pages of The Vancouver Sun and Sports Business Journal in the fall of 2006, the situation was even worse, with 87% of each team's 82-game regular season being played within its own conference and a whopping 39% within the division. That travel-saving, cost-reducing, highly-unbalanced format -- supposedly designed to promote regional rivalries -- was what the NHL took out of the lockout to say "Thank You Fans".
http://www.thesportmarket.biz/columns/2006/nov1306.htm
What it did was prevent fans in Vancouver from seeing emerging superstars such as Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals at least once each season. Instead, divisonal rotations meant we'd see #87 and #8 once every three years.
The NHL did slightly tweak its schedule three seasons ago, deploying a wildcard tool that at least allowed the Canucks to play host to Canada's three eastern teams -- the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs -- once each year.
Yet we still need to wait three years between visits from the marquee player brands and marquee team brands of the eastern conference. It's just not good enough for a league that is still a gate-driven business and relies on its season ticket holders for the vast majority of its revenues.
The flip side of this is that the Sedins and other top talents from the western conference are largely "site unseen" in the majority of eastern markets each year. The media and hence the fans rarely have the chance to see them play.
It's only part of the story, but the sooner the NHL's unbalanced schedule is replaced by a more balanced schedule -- i.e. like that of the NBA, which also has 30 teams and plays an 82-game regular season but limits intra-conference play to 63% -- the better. Annual visits (and the resultant television exposure, media coverage and fan impressions) will help build the personal brands of individual players like the Sedins, the team brands of all the teams in the league and, ultimately by extension, the brand of the NHL.
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