Vampire Weekend Morph Into a Shape of… Hockey Players

If you’ve never heard of Vampire Weekend, here’s what they sound like:

Anyway, they were in TimeOut New York in a hockey-themed photoshoot.  Check it out here.

FS Pittsburgh Draws Huge Ratings While Employee Gets Suspended For Non-Goal

These are different Pens-Flyers games, but here’s a link to an FSN employee getting suspended over yesterday’s flap over instant replay.  Meanwhile, FS Pittsburgh drew big ratings for Thursday’s telecast:

The Pittsburgh Penguins’ 3-2 shootout victory over the Philadelphia Flyers Thursday night drew a 10.95 rating on FSN Pittsburgh – the second-highest rating ever for a Penguins’ regular season game.

The only Penguins’ regular season game to draw a larger local TV audience was Mario Lemieux’s comeback game on Dec. 27, 2000 — one of the unique events in the history of sports — which registered a 15.90 rating.

Six of the Penguins’ top 10 regular-season ratings of all-time have come this season on FSN.

“This news comes in the same week that Penguins fans were named No. 1 in the NHL by Forbes magazine, and it is another example of their unbridled passion for Penguins hockey. We salute them again,” team president David Morehouse.

“The loyalty and commitment of Penguins fans never ceases to amaze us, and we’re delighted that the strong partnership between the Penguins and FSN Pittsburgh has produced these kinds of phenomenal ratings numbers,” said Ted Black, Senior Vice President/General Manger of FSN Pittsburgh.

The previous No. 2 was a 10.74 rating for the Penguins’ Oct. 23 game against Florida this season.

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NHL Local TV Ratings Solid

Sports Media Watch reports:

The Pittsburgh Penguins are attracting the largest local television audiences in the NHL.

Penguins games averaged a 8.08 rating (93,000 HHs) on FSN Pittsburgh through January 2, up 33% from last year, and the highest local rating for any NHL team this season.

The Penguins are well ahead of the second-place Buffalo Sabres, whose games on MSG have averaged a 6.17 rating (39,000 HHs) — down 29% from last year.

Following the Penguins and Sabres are the Red Wings (4.06 rating, up 11%), Blues (2.27 rating, up 47%), Flyers (2.16 rating, down 1%) and Bruins (2.14 rating, down 2%).

So far this season, the team with the largest increase in ratings is the New York Islanders, whose paltry 0.38 rating on MSG marks a 124% increase from last year.

We’ll try and get more of the story for you tomorrow.

HNIC 10PM Game Hits Season High

William Houston reports:

Hockey Night In Canada, Game 1, Pittsburgh-Toronto, plus New Jersey-Montreal and Florida-Ottawa, 1.755 million.

Game 2, Calgary-Vancouver, 1.607 million. That’s a big audience for the second game.

Hockey Night pre-game, 619,000.

Hockey Day in Minnesota Schedule

All the talk is usually about Hockey Day in Canada, but here’s some info about Hockey Day in Minnesota on FS North, from the Hutchinson Leader’s Eric Kraushar:

HOCKEY DAY MINNESOTA 2010 SCHEDULE

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Time Event Location

9-10 AM Hockey Day Minnesota

10-Noon PM Hopkins vs. Duluth-Marshall Hermantown

Noon-12:15 PM FSN Live Postgame

12:15-1 PM Hockey Day Minnesota

1-1:15 PM FSN Live Pregame

1:15-3:15 PM Eden Prairie vs. Hermantown Hermantown ($)

3:15-3:45 PM Live Conclusion of Duluth vs. Hermantown

3:45-4:30 PM Hockey Day Minnesota

4:30-5 PM Gopher Live Pregame

5-7:30 PM University of Minnesota vs. St. Cloud State

7:30-8 PM Wild Live Pregame

8-10:30 PM Minnesota Wild vs. Columbus Blue Jackets

10:30-11 PM Wild Live Postgame

11-11:15 PM FSN Live Pregame

11:15 PM-1:15 AM Duluth vs. Hermantown (girls) Hermantown (*)

1:15-1:30 AM FSN Live Postgame

1:30-2 AM Gopher Live Pregame

2-3:30 AM University of Minnesota vs. St. Cloud State (**)

3:30-4 AM Wild Live Pregame

4-5:30 AM Minnesota Wild vs. Columbus Blue Jackets (**)

5:30-6 AM Wild Live Postgame

Winter Classic Draws Interesting Attendees

Tripp Mickle and Terry Lefton of SBJ have this great article on the success of the Winter Classic, and you absolutely should read it, but here’s the part we’d like to focus on:

Currently, NBC broadcasts the Winter Classic as part of a revenue-sharing agreement with the NHL. But that deal ends in 2011 and the league should be able to use the event’s success to attract new bidders to a rights package built around the Classic. Some have already shown an interest, including CBS President Sean McManus and Sean Bratches, ESPN Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, who both attended the Winter Classic at Fenway.

“It’s the most TV execs from different outlets we’ve had at any game since I’ve been at the league,” Collins said.

Determining in what television rights package to include the Winter Classic next year will be very important to how much television revenue the NHL generates, sports media consultant Mike Trager said. “Their choice has got to be: Do we want it in a revenue-share package with two or three times the exposure, or do we want it in the cable package to see if we can extract some extra dollars?” he said.

Well, ESPN wants everything, and CBS is likely preparing for life without an as extensive NCAA Hoops rights package, so both make some sense for the type of package the NHL would want.  It’ll be interesting to see.