Before the advent of space telescopes, scientists relied on total solar eclipses to observe and study the corona; that outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere. What irony! The sun’s true nature is obscured by the sun’s overwhelming brilliance. Only by turning down the light, can proper observation take place.

The same can be said about hockey in this country. When the season is in full swing, we are blinded. Sports writers throw up reams of glowing text; live coverage transmits a blinding flash of gleaming skates and flailing sticks.

But right now we’re in a hockey eclipse. Over the next few months we have the opportunity to get a unique look at hockey’s atmosphere thanks to an owner instituted lockout. We have a chance to study without hockey’s bright glare.

On Saturday Oct. 13 this year, when CBC’s new season of Hockey Night In Canada would normally have launched, CBC ran a series of movie chestnuts like Jaws. The average total audience level was virtually identical to last year’s HNIC audience levels. William Houston ventured, in the Oct. 20 issue of The Globe and Mail that ‘perhaps the CBC should drop Hockey Night in Canada, discontinue the annual $60 million rights fee that it pays to the National Hockey League and just air cheap Hollywood movies.’

The audience profiles are obviously very different. HNIC skews male, movies skew female. But the overall impact of veritable, legendary HNIC darkness on the ‘CBC Mothership’ audience was… nothing.

This sobering observation leads one to

re-examine hockey’s ranking relative to other TV programs. The first regular season HNIC game consistently generates in excess of one million viewers. By my reckoning, there are over 20 regularly scheduled TV shows on CTV and Global that do better, like CSI, The West Wing, etc. The second game, which airs later in the Eastern Time zone, captures average-minute audiences around 700,000. CBC’s own Air Farce has pulled those kinds of numbers on a regular basis.

Here in Toronto, CBC’s HNIC captures a six rating and a two rating for the second game telecast. And TSN’s Leafs games normally do a three or four rating.

We’re not talking blockbuster here, folks.

According to PMB, about 14% of Canadians attend a professional hockey game over the course of a year (coverage of all persons 12+, English Canada, PMB 2004). Annual museum attendance also stands at 14%. Live theatre is 22%. Movies? 52%.

There are more Canadians who play soccer (7.2%) than hockey (7.1%).

Thanks to the recent diminishment of hockey’s illumination, we can see hockey for what it really is…an average event, of average size. Hockey is a sport loved intensely by a few, tolerated by some and ignored by many.

The great Hockey Eclipse of 2004 has been heralded with gnashing of teeth. According to sports journalists, a magnificent battle is being waged between the Gods of hockey and we, the people, will be doomed, lost in the darkness that is no-hockey.

But months have gone by, the season opener has come and gone and player pay cheques remain uncashed. There are lots of sports out there to fill the void and so we turned our focus to the new basketball season and then the CFL and Grey Cup.

Do I detect a collective yawn as the luminance that is pro hockey sinks beneath the horizon?

Now, if you really want to see Canadians get upset, lock out CSI!

Rob Young is one of the founders of Toronto’s PHD Canada (formerly HYPN). He can be reached at ryoung@phdca.com.