When you live in a certain area and surround yourself with similar-minded people, there is

a tendency to think that everyone thinks the way that you do.

That is especially true when when it concerns Buffalo and professional hockey.

People here love hockey so much that they just can't comprehend that most of the nation

wouldn't know Sidney Crosby from Sidney Poitier, Ryan Miller from Jonny Miller or Pat Kane

from Horatio Caine.

Team USA's games during the Vancouver Olympics rated phenomenally well here whether they were

carried on Channel 2, the NBC affiliate, or little cable sister MSNBC. If the team played a

game, hockey fans found it.

Team USA's 3-2 loss to Team Canada in the gold medal game had a 32 rating on Channel 2,

meaning roughly one-third of the area was tuned in. That was more than double the national

rating of 15.2, which was the highest for a hockey game in 30 years.

Some pundits with short memories have speculated that Olympic hockey madness will create much

more interest in the National Hockey League and its stars now.

Don't count on it. We've heard that song before.

Remember when Fox had the TV contract and in 1996 gave us the glowing blue puck? It was

supposed to help combat the theory that the NHL suffers as a TV sport because it is so hard to

see goals. And it is hard. It took a few replays to realize that Crosby's game-winner for Team

Canada went between Team USA goalie Ryan Miller's legs.

Remember when Wayne Gretzky, the Great One, led the Los Angeles Kings to the Stanley Cup

finals in 1993?

It was supposed to broaden the appeal of hockey beyond the Northeast and Midwest and combat

the old joke from former Kings owner Jack Kent Cooke, a native of Canada. According to legend,

he originally thought the sport would do well in Los Angeles because there are so many

transplanted Canadians there. Then he joked that he learned they all moved to L.A. because

they hated hockey.

Remember when Mark Messier led the New York Rangers to their first Stanley Cup title in 54

years in 1994 in a classic seven-game series with the Vancouver Canucks? A win near Madison

Avenue was supposed to broaden the appeal of the sport. Didn't happen.

And it won't happen now despite the marvelous games played in Vancouver that had something

extra on the line and appealed to patriotism on both sides of the border.

If anything, the Olympics games were so exciting that they make NHL regular-season games seem

like preseason games. Honestly, did you really care that much about the Sabres game with

Pittsburgh on Tuesday or did you flip over to a Syracuse basketball game, ABC's "Lost" or CBS'

"NCIS"?

The truth is that most of the Olympic games were on MSNBC or CNBC because the national rating

on NBC for two-hour games would be a fraction of what they were for figure skating,

bobsledding or skiing and NBC needs big ratings to recoup its enormous rights fee.

One shouldn't expect the exceptional rating for the final Olympic game to translate into

stronger ratings for the NHL any more than one should expect ratings for World Cup skiing, USA

skating championships or any minor interest sport to skyrocket post-Olympics.

When Lindsey Vonn isn't skiing in the Olympics or Evan Lysacek isn't skating in the Olympics,

the ratings for those sports are much lower, too. It is the Olympics that make marginal sports

popular for a few weeks, not the other way around.

The criticism of the NHL for failing to market its stars ignores the fact that Madison Avenue

decides who to use in commercials and not the league. Crosby was actually booed by some fans

in his own rink in Pittsburgh because he beat Team USA. Do you think many advertisers want to

use the Canadian hero as a spokesman?

The NHL and NBC could have tested the ability to exploit hockey's Olympic success by

showcasing Miller on the one potential "flex" NBC game of the week involving the Sabres,

against Carolina on March 21.

But Thursday, it decided to flex the New York Rangers at Boston. So, Miller and the Sabres are

being shut out of NBC's regular season schedule. So much for exploiting an Olympic hero.