Please stop the CFL vs NFL debate, it really is laughable. Before the NFL got a tv contract a debate could have been warranted, but not anymore. I know if the NFL wanted to expand into Canada you football fans would be ecstatic (see Toronto for instance). A part of me believes that a lot of Canadians want to believe that the CFL is comparable to the NFL because they know they aren't going to get anything better.
Although Toronto may technically be in Canada they are not Canada. Ask anyone east or west of the Ontario border. The answer you may get is that Toronto is an American wannabe.
Back to the ratings. Do they really matter as regional broadcasts have taken over. Has it occured to anyone that hockey fans get their fill watching the local team and if a national broadcast is showing other teams they don't care. I'm a Habs fan. I watch RDS to see the Habs much more often than I watch HNIC.
Hockey I think is healthy in the States. 24 NHL teams, gawd knows how many AHL/ECHL/UHL/SPHL teams plus NCAA, USHL, NAHL, and countless other regional junior leagues and High School leagues.
Seems to me that all we're complaining about is NHL not becoming an event like NFL or NBA. So what, there's more American players in the hockey fold now than ever before. Will hockey ever be to the States what is in Canada.....no but neither will basketball be in Canada what it is in the States. BCS season will not be as important in Canada as WJC and March Madness will not take over Memorial Cup (even Blue Jays were interrupted for Mem Cup) or the World Hockey Championship or Olympic hockey. I've never seen a bar advertise the NBA final (outside of Toronto). Heck I bet BCS or March Madness would pale in numbers if they were against the Grey Cup or the Brier and the Tournament of Hearts for that matter. But so what!
I'll go back to my previous post that NCAA has ownership of future players in other sports.
The average American viewer will not identify with players from Prince George, Swift Current, Sudbury, Val d'Or or Bathurst. As they do with players from Duke, Florida State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, or UCLA. For some reason Euros get a bye in this. Hockey for the most part is seen as foreign game. But yet at the same time support local teams. This I've never understood. But I really don't see hockey as under siege in the States.