from Andrew Bucholtz of Awful Announcing,

... For all the talented hockey writers in the U.S., their content often gets buried by news from other sports, and there just aren't the sheer numbers of people covering hockey south of the border that there are up north, causing plenty of American hockey fans to frequently rely on Canadian outlets like TSN (especially for breaking news). Good hockey coverage south of the border's certainly available, but it's admittedly often lower-profile (just look at how ESPN ignored last year's trade deadline, which has become a full-day coverage blitz of ridiculous proportions in Canada), so it's not really surprising that anadmittedly-casual hockey fan like Simmons turns to TSN.

What this illustrates is that a long lockout may be particularly devastating for the NHL in the U.S., though. Yes, ESPN senior vice president Vince Doria's May comments that hockey doesn't "transfer to a national discussion" were reasonably ridiculous at the time. (And certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with hockey being televised nationally on competitor NBC's channels.) But, the sport is far from dominant on a national scale south of the border. The lockout certainly isn't helping that.

Again, good U.S.-based lockout coverage is there if you know where to find it, but observation suggests that this is drawing far less attention south of the border than the recent NFL or NBA labour disputes. If the lockout continues to drag on, and particularly if it forces the cancellation of this season, it's easy to see the NHL falling further off the map Stateside (especially with casual fans) and drawing even less coverage. Canada and hardcore American fans will be back. Despite the anger of fans and media types up here, the love of the NHL's just too strong for most to stay away once the league and the union resolve their differences.

more and you really need to read the full article to get the complete picture...