I hate the Canucks organisation and I always have, the fans especially in Vancouver are the most wishy washy I don't give a fuck unless we are top of the league band wagon morons I have ever seen. It's a rebuilding time and everyone has abandoned them, a very often referenced columnist that reports on the canucks (I refuse to call him a beat writer) for the biggest newspaper there, Jason Botchford, is a complete and utter moron who writes terrible articles and has the thoughts on hockey of steel pipe. I remember when he was praising Lou on monday, tuesday he said trade him he's garbage, wednesday he said it's not his fault, thursday he said he's the greatest thing since Oprah and friday he said trade him all in a week of writing.
Hockey is a niche thing, look at ESPN laying off almost all the hockey people including Pierre Lebrun who is well respected in the hockey community. Even when I was down for the world cup in Las Vegas this past year the advertising for it was so poor on every sports station I saw in America, the bartender where my father and I were getting drunk every night hadn't heard a lick of it and they have sports stations playing at the bar all the time. So it's hard for (to me) the "average" american to get into it unless you're swept up in a Chicago or something along those lines that really loves the sport