Blackhawks Hosted Least-Watched Winter Classic Of All Time

The Chicago Blackhawks were blown out by the St. Louis Blues at Wrigley Field in this year’s edition of the Winter Classic.

Why were the lowly Blackhawks selected to host the event against one of their biggest rivals at this stage of the franchise?

Well, it’s simply because of Connor Bedard. The league wants to show him off as much as they can and rightfully so. He is still a developing teenager but the tools are there for him to be one of the best in the league.

Despite the Bedard factor, there was concern that the Blackhawks, who are now 0-5 all-time in Winter Classics, were awarded this event again too soon.

On Friday, it came out that this was the least-watched (on TV) Winter Classic of all time. Fewer than one million watched the game on TV as it only drew 920k viewers.

This broke the record low set by the Winter Classic that the Seattle Kraken hosted against the Vegas Golden Knights last season.

Why did this happen? Well, the league attempted to avoid the College Football Playoff on New Year’s Day but they didn’t avoid going head to head with a Bowl Game that featured Illinois (which is sure to get people in Chicago watching as well).

It also didn’t help that the Blackhawks had no chance to win from the start. The game wasn’t interesting on TV to the average viewer after the midway point.

The funny thing is that this was still the most-watched NHL game on TV this season. The previous leader was the Opening Night tilt between the Florida Panthers and Boston Bruins which had 790K tune in.

For those who were there, they got to experience the beautiful pageantry that comes with the Winter Classic but the league has to figure out a way to make it a prominent TV viewing experience again. Better teams with more marquee players would be a great start and getting back to New Year’s Day wouldn’t hurt either.

Even the sports-hungry city of Chicago wasn’t able to get the ratings higher this year due to their horrific team. For the national audience, there might still be some Blackhawks fatigue as they have been in a lot of these now.

As far as things go for the Blackhawks, they need to just keep working on building their franchise back into a contender. A half-decade (or more) away from outdoor games might not be the worst thing for them.

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