NHL: Is it Biggest Winner if the NBA and NFL Cancel or Shorten Seasons?

The NBA is almost certainly headed to a lockout this summer, as the current collective bargaining agreement the league is operating under will expire at midnight tonight. 

The NFL is already in a lockout, and has been trying to make a new CBA with the players association for months. 

With the real possibility that both the NBA and NFL could either have shorten seasons or no seasons at all this winter, is the NHL the big winner in all of this? 

What better way for the NHL, the least popular of the four major American sports, to increase its popularity and exposure than by being the only pro sports league to watch after the 2011 World Series ends the current baseball season in October?

Being the only pro sport to watch this winter would help the NHL in so many ways, from ticket sales to just promoting the game. It would also help the league take another step further in recovering from its own lockout issues it experienced several years ago, when the 2004-05 season was cancelled due to a labor dispute. 

The NHL just wrapped up a very exciting 2011 playoffs this month, capped with a thrilling seven-game Stanley Cup Finals, and has just re-upped their television rights with NBC and Versus for 10 more seasons. 

The league has also re-located the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg, a Canadian city that has waited so long to have another NHL team ever since the Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix in the 1990s. This re-location is creating lots of excitement around Canada, and has made wearing vintage Jets memorabilia cool again. 

In cities where an NHL and NBA team play in the same arena, like in Boston for example, the only ticket in town would be hockey if the NBA and NFL have no season. So if Bostonians want to see a sports game this winter, they’d have no choice but to see the Bruins. 

In many cities where the NBA team is leaps in bounds more popular than its NHL neighbor, like Los Angeles, the hockey team will grow not only in revenue, but new fans will begin to care about the sport. 

In a city like Los Angeles that is so passionate about the Lakers, the L.A. Kings would be the focal point of the town for the first time since Wayne Gretzky led the franchise to the Cup Finals in 1993.

This would be HUGE for the Kings. Could you imagine a year when more people are wearing Drew Doughty Kings jerseys than Blake Griffin Clippers jerseys? How many of you even know who Drew Doughty is? 

Just think of all the cities in which the NHL team would become the biggest sports attraction. This spike in interest wouldn’t just help during a year in which there are no NFL or NBA seasons, it would continue to help the sport of hockey long after the NBA and NFL are back to playing games. 

Many people don’t realize how exciting hockey is, and how thrilling watching the game live can be until they entrench themselves into the sport.

In Boston this year for example, many people were astonished at how awesome having a good hockey team is. For so many years, Bruins fans were the laughing stock of the town. 

The Celtics, Red Sox and Patriots were all winning championships while the Bruins were an afterthought in Boston sports. 

After the Bruins won the Stanley Cup this year, Bostonians now realize how exciting hockey in May and June is. 

The only problem for the NHL is they don’t start their weekend Game of the Week NBC games until January, and many people still don’t have Versus, or even know what the heck Versus is. 

If the NHL is the only league playing this winter, it will have to change its TV scheduling to help maximize its exposure. 

There’s no doubt ESPN will be constantly talking about the NBA and NFL while their lockouts are being resolved through the winter (if it gets that far), but even with that said, if the NHL is the only league playing next season, the sports will grow at an unprecedented rate.

Hockey is often described as a "niche" sport, but this winter it could be the only sport you'll be able to watch.

Nicholas Goss is a Boston Bruins, Oklahoma City Thunder and NBA featured columnist for Bleacher Report, and was the organization's on-site reporter for the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals in Boston. Follow him on Twitter for Bruins, Thunder and NBA news and analysis.