I became a huge hockey fan about three years ago and watched a lot of Nashville Predators games on the local FSN. This past season, in the absence of rink action, I followed the NFL more closely than I had in recent years, and this has been the closest I've ever followed April baseball.
I miss hearing Thorne and Clement together on ESPN, too.
One of the ironies of the current NHL woes is that they're going to lose these expansion markets that they've been cultivating in the past few years. Folks in Nashville packed the GEC when the Preds made the playoffs. Tampa Bay got to the Cup. Should the NHL (ever) get back on track, fans in the "original six" cities will probably show up like nothing happened, but how to lure back the tentative fans in other regions?