I don't really like it but want to. I think I'm one of the casual fans that I think the NHL is trying to reach. It's hard for me to follow a non-Baltimore team and I lose the puck when it disappears behind the boards on TV, so maybe I'm a pretty hard target for the NHL.
Yeah but if you REALLY want to, you'd get into it. I think the idea of getting into it sounds fine to you as it does to a lot of people that don't follow it because it's one of the "big 4", but it's really kind of a niche sport here in the states.
I know on these boards a lot of discussion pops up that since there's no team in Bmore people don't follow, but if there was a local team, more people would watch, that's simply just not true though. The Caps are 40 miles from Baltimore, which is closer than a large majority of cities in the country are to their "home" team. This area BARELY supports the team we have, and only has periods of success when the "bandwagon" fans buy in. When the team is middle of the pack or struggling, the fans disappear. There is ZERO chance that there are enough fans in the region to support two hockey teams.
Being a hardcore fan of hockey in general my entire life, and seeing the ebbs and flows of attendance in this area, both IN the city and in the suburbs closer to Baltimore I can tell you first hand this area is just too far south to THRIVE as a hockey area.
Like you both touched on in the other posts, this sport is a niche sport here, and gets worse the further south you go. The southern expansion experiment is over, and it's time to either move those southern teams that are terrible year after year back to Canada, or just contract them all together.