Maybe Boomer was right. People do care about hockey.
The NHL released its viewership numbers for the Eastern Conference Final series, which the Rangers lost in six games to the two-time defending champion Lightning, and they were among the best numbers of the last decade.
The series as a whole averaged 2.4 million viewers, which was up 82 percent from last year’s conference final average across cable and broadcast, and up 32 percent from the 2019 conference final average. Last year, another New York team in the Islanders battled in the conference final against the Lightning, losing in a decisive seventh game.
This year’s Eastern Conference Final ended in six after Tampa Bay took four in a row from the Blueshirts, and that game six in Tampa, which ended in a narrow 2-1 win for the Lightning, averaged 2.8 million viewers, up 83 percent from a “comparable” playoff game last season, and Saturday night’s game, which turned out to be the last of the Rangers season, peaked at 3.8 million viewers.
It was the most viewed game six of a conference final in 20 years, since the rival Red Wings and Avalanche battled it out in the Western Conference Final in 2002.
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