The NHL season just started this past saturday, January 19th 2013. In the Montreal Canadian stadium, people were there at 7:30am and waited for upwards of 12 hours, just to be able to get a good seat for the first home game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. In Vancouver, Henrik Sedin addressed to fans prior to their game against the Anaheim Ducks saying "We are very sorry for the Lockout and will do everything in our power to have a great season, going towards the cup. Thank you."
The moral of the story here is that the NHL is very worried about the revenue that will be produced during this regular season, especially southern teams such as the Florida Panthers, and especially last place teams such as the Columbus Blue Jackets, having post lockout problems. However with all this worry, NBC received record breaking numbers for television viewership, come Saturday night, with a rating of 2.3. This has been the highest rating since 2002, over 11 years ago. With all this information being stated, Florida won, the Maple leafs Won, and the whole league is off to a great start in terms of revenue gaining, especially when most teams are selling tickets for a dirt cheap price of 10$, mind you they arent good seats, but people still would buy them. A lot of people stuck around to watch the triple header that happened, with hockey starting at 3 all the way until 1am to finish the 3rd game.
Twitter was also exploding after and during these games, the hashtag #NHL was the popular trend mingling in the tweeting world. After games, players in the NHL showed how they felt towards being back in the game and the regular season. Joffrey Lupul of the Toronto Maple Leafs says "So happy to be back playing again for the next 5 with the Maple Leafs, lets bring home the cup" as well as many other players showing the fun and future goals they have.
All and all the NHL is doing really well right now and hopefully it will continue.
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