NHL: Will The Winter Classic Save All Future Seasons?

The NHL almost had the professional sports scene all to itself in February, if only the Christmas spirit had not promoted cool heads between the NBA and its players.

But now is the time for the hockey world to follow one of its competitive principles and not worry about what its rivals are accomplishing, but rather focus on what it can do for its own success. The best way to do that in the coming year is to emulate the NBA and use one of its own traditions to build immunity against another season-consuming lockout.

As it stands now, the current collective bargaining agreement will expire in mid-September, precisely eight years to the day that the infamous 2004-05 lockout formally commenced. There was plenty to lose along with that whole season in the way of popularity, and it required painstaking measures to recover.

As it happened, one of the most encouraging turning points occurred in the third post-lockout campaign when the Buffalo Sabres hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins on New Year’s Day at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

Building upon that event, which obliterated the league’s attendance record and drew an impressive 2.6 TV rating on NBC whilst competing with college football bowl games, the NHL Winter Classic has since fastened its moorings.

Now every team wants its turn to have a unique change of pace and play before a more quantitative live audience. New and established fans alike want to soak in the spectacle in person or from home, but not before taking an inside look at the participating clubs via HBO’s “24/7.”

Thanks in large part to the Winter Classic, the NHL has reached a point where the formerly unthinkable question is worth posing: Who needs ESPN?

As evidenced especially by a development that coincided with yesterday’s Flyers vs. Rangers clash at Citizens Bank Park, breaking up with the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” has allowed hockey to help pilot the takeoff for another sports network.

Since the lockout, the league’s new American cable abode has gone from answering to the name Outdoor Life Network to Versus to the NBC Sports Network. There is no way that could have happened without the influence of one of the continent’s four major sports leagues.

Together with the newly rebranded network, as well as the parent NBC channel and the NHL Network born in 2007 (ironically based in ESPN’s hometown of Stamford, Conn.), hockey is anything but malnourished in the media. And the annual buildup to the Winter Classic, from the speculation as to who plays who and where to the confirmation press conference to the days of live coverage, makes a feast between all three networks.

Regarding the second half of each season that ensues, the NHL has been helped by fate when it comes to the last four Stanley Cup finals matchups. Each championship in the Winter Classic era has involved an Original Six team, three have involved a member of the 1967 expansion class and two have included Sidney Crosby.

Even so, it is ludicrous to dismiss the nationally televised outdoor game as a nonfactor in NBC’s ratings for the rest of the ride. Five months after the Penguins beat the Sabres in the first Winter Classic, they partook in the first final series to crack the 3.0 rating plateau in the United States since 2002.

Some pointed to Crosby and to the Detroit Red Wings and claimed that both the 2008 and 2009 Cup finals only drew a 3.1 NBC rating because it was America’s Team East versus America’s Team West.

But how, then, do you explain the increase to 3.4 in the 2010 series when the long-irrelevant Blackhawks beat the Flyers? How do you explain NBC’s broadcast of last year’s Game 7, which had Boston knocking off Vancouver, a Canada-based team, drawing the single-greatest U.S. audience for a hockey game since 1973?

Face it. The NHL has emboldened its own brand and that of its teams by conducting the Winter Classic. For that reason, it can afford to miss this for a year even less than it could afford to squander the 2004-05 campaign.

Team owners and commissioner Gary Bettman need not be pressed with reminders of the attention and revenue they would lose in the event of a 2012-13 work stoppage. They doubtlessly want to get going on the next season sometime before January.

It is, however, worth reminding the players that letting a labor stalemate extend into the next calendar year not only means wasting what may, for some, be the only chance to play in a Winter Classic. It also means potentially delaying the opportunity for others, perhaps ultimately delaying it for life.

Even the NBA agreed that it couldn’t do without its Christmas Day ritual, which always involves more teams and therefore a greater percentage of its players than the Winter Classic. Surely, the NHL is not reckless and heartless enough to overlook its own marquee midseason event, one that is decidedly more special and more enriching to its sport from both a publicity and sentimental standpoint.

In contrast to 2004, there is simultaneously more to lose and more not to gain without a timely new CBA. This offseason will be time for the Winter Classic to step up like Henrik Lundqvist and preserve the NHL’s rally from the dead.