from Maria Burns Ortiz of ESPN,

Social media firm Fizziology studied fan sentiment during the waning weeks of the lockout. Unlike many social media companies using a computer program to gauge social media sentiment, Fizziology researchers personally study a sample of social media posts. According to general manager Rich Calabrese, the company gauges social media sentiment with 95 percent accuracy.

Fizziology analyzed almost 10,000 posts from five markets in the United States and Canada, and its findings showed U.S. hockey fans weren’t weathering the lockout well. In Los Angeles, home of the reigning Stanley Cup champions/social media-savvy Kings, 56 percent of the social media sentiment around the NHL was negative. In New York -- which boasts three teams -- 52 percent of the sentiment was negative.

Of course, from a marketing standpoint, the only thing worse than having fans vent their unhappiness with your team is having fans not talking about you at all. And that’s largely what Fizziology found. With the exception of the New York market, the NHL was hardly even on the social radar in American cities -- including traditional hockey hotbeds Pittsburgh, Chicago and Boston -- as 2012 came to a close.

Things didn’t get much better once the lockout ended.

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