I can only imagine Stadler & Waldorf from "The Muppet Show" critiquing that hour of broadcasting...

Well, it's not a lie that Blackhawks fans abandoned the Blackhawks.

Seeing as the Flyers have only been around since 1967, won back to back Stanley Cups in the 1970's, made the playoffs pretty much every season except a few right before Lindros arrives in the early 1990's and have sold out and been among the top teams in attendance throughout their history, I think it's tough to say that the Flyers fans abandoned their team. There's zero proof of that. So what if sports talk radio types didn't always give them their due, Flyers fans still packed Flyers games and supported their team, including 2006-2007 when the Flyers had their worst season in franchise history.

Compare attendance over the last decade, when neither team did much in the playoffs, and the Flyers posted their worst single season record in their history:

2001 Flyers 3rd | 19.575
2001 Hawks 24th | 14,996

2002 Flyers 3rd | 19,569
2002 Hawks 23rd | 15,568

2003 Flyers 3rd | 19,235
2003 Hawks 24th | 14,794

2004 Flyers 4th | 19,375
2004 Hawks 27th | 13,253

2006 Flyers 4th | 19,653
2006 Hawks 29th | 13,318

2007 Flyers 7th | 19,282
2007 Hawks 29th | 12,727

2008 Flyers 4th | 19,556
2008 Hawks 19th | 16,814

2009 Hawks 1st | 22,247
2009 Flyers 4th | 19,545

2010 Hawks 1st | 21,356
2010 Flyers 4th | 19,53

I think there's one big reason why Blackhawk fans had stopped going to games until now. He's no longer with us, but fans grew very tired of Bill Wirtz being more interested in his other businesses instead of putting the money back into the product like other teams. Also, keep in mind the Hawks blacked out their home games for the longest time as well...

in the spirit of borrowing a gimmick from another poster:
Usually unflappable RPB gets acting quite flapped over the 2010 Blackhawks fans being worse bandwagoners than 2004 Red Sox pink hats fans tickat

Oh boy, not again, cribbed from 'nother thread:

"Old Man Wirtz never let home games be broadcast on local TV (but road games were, but who wants to watch road games).

So it wasn't a change. But attendance at Blackhawks has ping-ponged up and down with the success of the team. Go back and look at the 90's attendance figures, the home-games-blacked-out-locally Blackhawks were among the tops in the league in attendance.

Blaming your not attending any NHL games for a decade or decades on the lack of local TV coverage of home Blackhawk games is kinda

Be like Big fan, embrace your bandwagon-status. Wear a pink Cubs hat, Mark Prior or DeRosa jersey over a tag still on it Hossa sweater and bring that W flag to the UC...yadda, yadda, yadda..."

The hell it is.

Way back when, I used to actually sit and listen to the home games on the radio. It was the norm then and you didn't know any better. Then, the NFL lifted the blackout for sold-out games, the Bulls started televising home games, cable came onto the scene with more televised sports than any of us could possibly imagine, and all of a sudden, listening to a hockey game on the radio in order to follow half your team's games became a pretty unattractive proposition.

Don't ever understimate the folly of Wirtz's anti-home-TV stance as the rest of the world entered "the-more-television-the-better" age.

Nah, Hussra's going down swinging on this whole Flyers Uber Alles thing.

I heard about the first twenty minutes of this, not sure why, and gave up after they tried to do a caller duel where one caller dropped out. That was a signal to move on with my day.

Sports talk radio is one of those things where you really can't be exposed to somebody else's. That everyone went into a rousing round of Well My Town just made it worse. When you hear these two Philly meatballs and figure that they're among many other Philly meatballs, you realize how lucky we are to have B&B.

EDIT: Apparently Macnow/Gargano is like their Mully/Hanley. Oh man. Who's their North? Do we want to know? (Howard Eskin is like their Chet, obviously without the antisemitic angle. Fur coats and everything!)

_________________

Nah, not over all, just over Blackhawks and their fans.

Flyers fan-base is one of the most loyal|dedicated in the NHL, up there with the Maple Leafs and Habs.

Blackhawks fans could maybe compete with Thrasher/Ducks/Coyote fan-bases for loyalty and dedication to their teams.

It's silly for Blackhawks fans to try to blame their lack of interest in anything hockey until last season's Winter Classic forward on the Blackhawks home games not being televised. What the heck does the idiot box have to do with your interest in ice hockey? Unless you're a drooling idiot, zilch.

NHL games have never had great coverage on tv. Until HD, it didn't really matter; game was so much better live, still is, but HD helps the NHL more than any other sport. Flyers have had their share of blacked out games. Doesn't keep them away from the games, even when their team craps the bed, as it did in 2006-2007.

Please hang up on yourself after making that statement. Don't ever compare the Blackhawks to 2 expansion franchises and a relocated one that the NHL is more or less running.

Oh, fuck off. What are you even doing here?

_________________

Hey, I'm not responsible for the Blackhawks being next to last | in the bottom 5 NHL franchises in attendance during this decade. Don't shoot the messenger!

Technically, since this is 2010...

Attendance leaders this decade

Blachawks 1st

Flyers 4th
http://espn.go.com/nhl/attendance

_________________

HA, nice one. Only 4 more decades of maintaining that attendance and the Blackhawks fans can enter the conversation with Flyers fans.


I don't think the Flyers building's capacity can match the UC's.

Actually this decade would be 2001-2010...

Take it easy there, Achilles ... nobody has to go for a run - outside of the military; even then you can put a bullet in your own foot (or, for a more permanent fix, your own head).

On an unrelated note, NWSH - shut the fuck up about attendance as though it's any sort of metric to gauge anything other than a number of patrons.

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

yes very good. by the way it was a fantastic run. lovely.



look you do realize he is the adversary here. i am just a true orange flyers fan. i think he's right that flyers fans have been more loyal but they didn't have to deal with what the blackhawks fans did.

all i want is a good series. i can't wait to check out mad river. it'll be fun.

don tiny is the man.

That's why I specifically used his acronym: 'NWSH' ... I wasn't addressing a faulty compass.

The rest of your post was excellent however; the end was particularly strong.

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

I choose to count the previous decade as 2000-2009. After all, it's called "I love the 80's" not "I love 81-90".

_________________

Aggravated Bob, bigfan, Bucky Chris, rich farmsystem and I were all there and couldn't hear a damn thing because they couldn't have audio monitors set up. It was the quietest remote that I've been to up until the Chicago vs. Philly thing. Even then, we had to be right next to them to hear anything. Still, it was a fun time.

Got to meet the Philly chick from Mad River, Casey I think.

_________________
-"God is great. Beer is good. And People are crazy!"

i'll be @ mad river around 4:30pm tomorrow...i'll see if i run into this...casey.

i wasn't saying that the lie was about chicago supporting their team; i was just saying that philly couldn't sit there and say they *didn't* abandon their own franchises while one of theirs was struggling. the flyers have always sold out. there's a running joke that "it's always been the same 17 thousand people" all those years. but teams like the phillies have been ignored for the past few decades until they started winning. so that was my point.

the blackhawk fans had a right to abandon their team. i would just hope that most of them, while abandoning their team, abandoned all of hockey as well...but i know that's not the case with all.

A winning team in a city does not explain a fan base, Cubs and Bears have possiblly the BEST and LARGEST fan bases in each sport.

Ironically, they have the smallest stadiums. The Cubs at least have an excuse, because someone in 1914 didnt buy more land. lol, but the idiot Bears built a new stadium 5 years ago and end up with the smallest stadium in football. nice move McIdiots.

Fact is the Bears have had the highest avg radio and TV ratings over the past 10 years of any team.

Funny thing is they are long time original teams thus have had years and years to cultivate these fan bases.

The 2 teams not on TV that have been around for years and years, (Sox and Hawks) now trying to make up hueg lost ground.

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

it depends on what sport defines your town i guess. chicago is a huge baseball/football town. but there is a park that doesn't sell out very often, too. a winning team can alter a fan base periodically; that's pretty obvious.

While the Cubs may suffer from not having bought more land early on, they have been completely saved by where the original land was bought. If the Cubs had been located just about anywhere else they would be a dead organization. For a team that regularly sucks as badly as they have for over 100 years their saving grace has been proximity to a young, mobile, middle to upper middle class fan base. The fact that that fan base makes their own fun inside the friendly confines instead of watching the putrid product has only increased the psychological satisfaction of the otherwise abused fans. Location, location, location has been the saving grace of that woeful club. All of the management geniuses that have come since that land was originally purchased have been riding on the coattails of that real estate purchase, including the mighty McDonough, who has actually done more heavy lifting with the Hawks than he ever had to do with the Cubs.

On yesterday's show, did I hear right, it sounded like Mac was the only one going to Philly, he said Eddie O would be sitting with him Thursday, could be wrong, but the Score has only enough to send 1 not both.

Maybe Spiegel is playing a local elementary school the night before? I do think it is time Spiegel takes some serious shit for his absences. Pick a job!

_________________
""I am now done at the Score."
Mike North, June 24, 2008

Actually, they have enough for 2 airline tickets, but since Spiegel requires 2 seats just for him, Mac's going solo.

While I am never going to deny that the Cubs being in Wrigley helps, the 83-89 years period that you had to pay for Sox games on TV, while the Cubs were on in every single home across the nation with Cable for kids to see as day games.

Yeah, that had nothing to do with it.

The Cubs were a programming purchase, not a real estate purchase. 400 hours of renewable programming for $23 million is/was an amazing deal. In those days you had to drop $1 million for 10 episodes of Charles in Charge for a total of 5 hours.

And you are wrong about if they bought anywhere else. What if they are in Edgewater? Do you think it is still the crackpipe center of Chicago? No way. Maybe wherever they went , combined with the people comign to the games, gentrifying an area is what happened.???

MAGNUS you missed the main point on this one buddy.

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Don't blame Meatpants for milking the system. Blame Mitch.

_________________
CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan