Hockey will always be a niche sport. You either love the game or you don't. The casual fan does not go to a bar to watch back-to-back to back hockey games on Sat or Sun during the fall and winter months, however they do for football, even if just for the atmosphere.
We know hockey is a great sport to watch, baseball is beyond boring, however you don't always have to pay attention to a baseball game. You do in hockey! Most fans turn the channel during a baseball game only to come back to it later, after they realize they haven't had the game on for 30 minutes.
I blame the parents as well. Most don't know much about hockey, and they tend to push their kids into team sports that they are familiar with and close by like soccer and baseball. It's easy, pull up a lawn chair and relax. Most parents don't want to have to drive their kids 30 minutes or more to go to a rink and have to sit there bundled up for a 9:00pm or 6:00am practice.
There isn't a huge marketable player in the NHL. There is no Mahome's, Kelce x2. For the most part NHL players are humble without huge egos. ESPN loves huge egos. They will show a 6'9 man dunk a b-ball over and over rather than an NHL player making an incredible shot, while falling down. The kids growing up today, if not playing youth hockey are not watching hockey.
Lastly, Will Ferrell in the stands is not bringing the casual fan to hockey.
Don't blame the parents for being "lazy" or uninformed on the sport. That's probably a small percentage.
The real story is how cost prohibitive youth ice hockey is to play versus soccer, baseball, basketball.
The cost for ice hockey league fees, equipment, ice time is massively expensive compared to virtually any other major sport.
There is another thing that people forget about is the learning curve to skate.
If you are a kid that has never skated, you can't just get on the ice and play hockey, it's going to take you weeks of skating lessons, and ice time to get to a point where you can skate well enough to start playing hockey and learning stick skills, more complex skating skills, and of course, the game.
That takes more time and more money,.
Meanwhile any kid can run, kick, throw, catch, swing, dribble....so jumping into a recreational league for nearly any other sport is easy, and you can do it on day one.
But again, the BIGGEST hurdle for youth hockey is $$$$$$.
It's a "rich kids" sport. No disrespect, but that's what it is.
...and that is an obstacle to overcome for NHL marketing for youth fans.
If you don't have the $$, then hockey is a foreign to a kid as Cricket.
