FANS HAVE TUNED IN AND TURNED ON TO CUP CHASE

Games are being played in sold-out arenas, TV ratings are soaring — especially in U.S.

It's like being the baseball pitcher who threw the home run ball to Hank Aaron to break the home run record of Babe Ruth.

If the Edmonton Oilers lose a fourth game and are eliminated in the first round of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs, they'll have played a part to in making sports history.

I mean, consider what's happening here this season.

Seven of the eight series in the first round of the exceptional experience that is the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs have gone to Game 6.

Only one of 16 teams had been eliminated as Game 6 first round play began Thursday.

There's nothing in sport that can quite match Round 1 of bestof-seven playoffs in hockey. And this has been a brilliant bounceback year from COVID protocol seasons.

The show had gone on. Hub city bubble hockey in Toronto and Edmonton.

Shortened pandemic mini-leagues like last year's all-canadian division playoffs. Playoffs with no fans. It wasn't the same.

But the 2022 first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs has given the NHL a massive bounceback to the special two weeks where hockey season peaks six weeks before the actual Stanley Cup final.

Throughout the first eight days of Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, coverage on Hockey Night in Canada and Sportsnet has reached a remarkable 15.1 million Canadian viewers per day.

That represents 40.4 per cent of the population.

Viewer reach is up five per cent versus 2020 and three per cent over 2021.

Considering the impact the North Division had on first round numbers last season, this season's increase is quite impressive.

The Toronto Maple Leafs' comeback to defeat the backto-back Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 Tuesday in Toronto reached 6.9 million viewers.

Despite an 8:20 p.m. start in Edmonton in a game that kept people in the Eastern time zone up until almost 2 a.m. to watch the Oilers battle back from an early deficit to make it to overtime only to lose 5-4 to the Los Angeles Kings, the reach was 4.7 million Canadians.

Understand that those numbers do not include French-language viewers on TVA.

But it's in the U.S. where the numbers have been nothing short of spectacular.

Through the first 32 games across ESPN, ESPN2, TNT and TBS, they're up 42 per cent from 2021 and 29 per cent on cable through the same number of games with the former TV partners.

Of note, Saturday's Game 3 of the New York Rangers-pittsburgh Penguins series on TNT was the most watched Round 1 Game 1-4 of a series on U.S. cable yet.

It was the most watched first round non-game 6 or 7 since 1997. The game delivered an average audience of 1.323 million. That's up 119 per cent from last year's Penguins-islanders Game 3 on NBCSN. Compared to 2019's Islanders-penguins Game 4 on NBCSN, the game was up 111 per cent.

When he was in Edmonton for Game 2, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told me the first game of the playoffs on new partner ESPN drew the largest TV audience in the U.S. in more than 20 years.

Bettman expanded on the big picture involving the return to near normal after the four games Tuesday.

“Our buildings are packed. We're playing to at least 100 per cent capacity in all of our playoff games. Our TV ratings are up, particularly in the U.S. significantly. Most important, our fans are back and connected.

“Last week I made a six-city tour to experience Round 1 playoff games and found it incredibly energizing,” he said of the trip, that included stops in Calgary and Edmonton.

“I missed it over the last couple of years. Having been to so many games with empty arenas including in the bubble in Toronto and Edmonton, to see the crowds with all of our buildings full has been fabulous.

“The excitement has been sensational. People really want to enjoy being at the games. Isn't that what we're really all about, connecting with the fans?”

It's the excitement of the Leafs in Game 5 rallying from their previous identity of being a team that can be counted on to capsize and blow series after series.

It's the excitement of the Oilers getting to overtime in Game 5 against the Los Angeles Kings in Rogers Place.

Edmonton fans won't treasure the memories of the team's terrible start and frustrating finish in overtime. But what about the way Connor Mcdavid and Leon Draisaitl rallied to get the team to overtime? It was compelling first round stuff.

Yes the Oilers may end up having been the man who threw the pitch that Hank Aaron hit out of the park. But despite exactly zero fans in Edmonton who would find glory in it, they'd be able to look back knowing they'd been part of it as the game made a remarkable return to the most wonderful two weeks of a season.

They'll skate away from this season like Al Downing watching Hank Aaron round the bases, forever linked to a great moment in sport.