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6/22/2009 3:31 AM

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Luv ya, black and gold.

Four months after the Pittsburgh Steelers participated in the highest-rated Super Bowl to date, the Pittsburgh Penguins helped net the highest rating for an NHL game in 36 years for its Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. That's partially because of the fact that two hockey-crazed cities - Pittsburgh and Detroit - contributed heavily to the television count (especially those 3,000 people who found themselves homebound when NBC nixed using the outdoor Mellon Arena screen).

Even taking that hometown pride quotient out of the equation, it's great news for hockey. Though Stanley's 8 million viewers paled in comparision with the NBA finals, which averaged about 15 million per night, it's significant that the hockey game aired on a Friday, while NBA's ratings slam dunk can at least in part be attributed to airing on more viewer-friendly week nights.

The other eye-opening statistic was that the hockey game finished immediately behind the basketball games - and ahead of every network series - in attracting viewers ages 18-49. That bodes well for the chances of the networks bolstering hockey coverage in the future - and I suppose also spells impending doom for the use of that outdoor screen.

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On the downside, however, are a few sobering statistics. On the night the NBA and NHL games aired opposite each other, they together drew about 13 percent of viewers - which means 87 percent of viewers were watching something else. That could never be said about the Super Bowl, which generally attracts around 70 percent of viewers, slightly more if you include those who tune in only for the halftime show (anticipating, perchance, another wardrobe malfunction).

The most recent Super Bowl scored a record 98.7 million viewers; in comparison, the 2008 World Series final game could rally just 15.8 million and the series average of 13.6 million was an all-time low. All of which means that basketball has apparently eclipsed baseball as the second-most popular TV sport - with hockey a few pucks away from third place.

While those who bleed black, gold and powder blue might credit Sidney Crosby for the surge in hockey's ratings, it's more likely a combination ofitems. Certainly, the quick pace of the game is appealing to young people, and the young age of the sport's players is a contributing factor as well, especially with teenage girls, who have elevated some of the more attractive players to rock-star status.

But television may well pat itself on the back for the primary reason for hockey's new popularity. With high-definition clarity, viewers can finally follow the puck. And, as mentioned in this column a few weeks back, a well-deserved assist goes to those highly-skilled announcers who not only can keep up with the action, but also are immensely entertaining.

If hockey ever hopes to become a major television sport, however, it will have to be somewhat less greedy. Eliminate - please! - some regular-season games so that the season ends, at the latest, in mid-May. By June, people have drifted away from the television set, and are unlikely to return to watch a winter sport - no matter how exciting. Come to think of it, they might think those hockey games are just part of the many June reruns.

Local TV shoots ...

and misses

Attendance for the Penguins' celebratory parade, it should be noted, outdrew by a 4-to-1 margin the victory bash for the basketball champs on the West Coast. The Pittsburgh stations generally did a credible job covering the parade, helped in no small part by the fact that they had just covered a similar event a few months before (this being the City of Champions, of course). One major setback was a new edict that reporters couldn't access players directly along the parade route, but had to hope players instead reacted to pleas for an interview. That resulted in reporters and anchors, within earshot of each other and TV viewers, begging for a few sound bites. It was, at best, distracting and, at worst, insulting. What did they expect the players to say? "Well, Sally, to be honest we'd really rather be drinking champagne on the North Side?" Of course, they players that did disembark from their vehicles all said, "Wow, this is great ... so many fans ... what a great day!" in so many words.

Wouldn't it have been more interesting to just have a static camera on the sidewalk so viewers could see the parade as if they were there?

And while I realize this was a celebration and not "hard" news, it was nonetheless disconcerting to have a sports reporter body surfing among the crowd. BIll Burns would not have been pleased.

As for last week's prime-time coverage of the tornado that never happened, let's just say that's it's commendable local stations want to alert us to hunker in the basement with our hands over our face (one station actually said that, which would mean we couldn't be watching them on TV as the same time.

While one can't fault the stations for pre-empting any worthy network shows that night, it's still curious why all three local stations felt it necessary to obliterate network shows for most of the evening. Couldn't we have been directed by a bottom crawl to their all-weather-all-the-time channel, or after 10 p.m., to the CW or Fox news affiliates for the information?

Also, in at least one instance, a somewhat calmer approach was in order. While we were eating dinner, one announcer stated, "Everyone in our viewing area is getting drenched right now." I shrugged and returned outside to finish some gardening. For this viewer, the hunkering down would have to come later.

Terry Hazlett covers TV and radio for the Observer-Reporter. He can be reached at snowballrizzo@aol.com.

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