When Nothing Is Something!

I’ve always said that what makes NHL Digest so great is the opportunity that we provide for fans to be heard.

This site is designed to provoke conversations and I am certainly glad that several folks took the time to respond.

In response to the video post about “Nothing” being more popular then the NHL, an NHL Digest reader has prepared the following response (which I think is great by the way):

Alex States:

As a fellow hockey fan, I’m glad you have this website and are interested in better understanding the popularity of our great game in the US, I have to point out that there are several fundamental flaws with your research.

First of all, any noun as common as the word “nothing” is going to outperform an acronym like “nhl” in a Google search. While it sounds clever to say that “nothing” is more popular than the “nhl”, I’m sure you’ll find the same thing for “car”, “dog”, “job” and so on. The word “nothing” is going to come up in absolutely every topic imaginable, including the NHL, as is it no doubt going to turn up headlines like “Nothing can stop Sidney Crosby” or “Balsillie will stop at nothing to get an NHL team”. This is not a helpful comparison.

Second, comparing “nhl” to “mlb” and other sports league acronyms is going to give you far more meaningful comparative results. Who cares if “nothing” is more popular? We want to know if “mlb” is more popular. And when you run a Google Trends search on “mlb” and “nothing”, SURPRISE!, the results look much like the NHL search results. I guess nothing is more popular than baseball too, right? Clearly not.

But yes, the results for mlb are still better than those for nhl, which leads to point #3. NHL fans are by far the most tech savvy of all of the major sports. They use the web more, and they understand technology and the Internet better. So your average hockey fan doesn’t need to Google the word “nhl” to get their hockey info. They all know exactly where to go, they all have their favorite sites, and when they want info they search for that info specifically, not with broad terms like “nhl” which will yield far too many results for any typical search. When you are looking for sports information, do you go to Google and type “sports”? Geez, I hope not, Man! No, you go to your favorite sports site. All this research proves to me is what I have known for a while now — hockey fans are tech savvy and don’t need to Google the word “nhl” to get the info they are looking for.

Now I’m not going to argue that the NHL doesn’t have US exposure problems, but your analysis does nothing to support that claim anyway. And worry not, my friend. Our great sport is on the rise while the other big leagues are riddled with scandal and declining. The NHL is way ahead of the other leagues when it comes to alternative distribution methods. And those of us here in the US who want to see hockey know exactly where to find it.