From Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo! Sports:
Felska is a blogger on The State of Hockey News, a Minnesota Wild blog. His fan rankings run from 30-21, 20-11 and yesterday’s publication of the Top 10. The Wild are fourth, trailing behind the Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings and your fan base champions, the Montreal Canadiens.
Before every Wings-basher screams in unison about empty seats at the Joe during the Stanley Cup playoffs, here’s Felska’s criteria:
1. Attendance average for last 3 seasons, 2. Observations of fan activity during games, 3. Observations of fan activity on message boards and blogs. Each component will be graded on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being outstanding or perfect and 0 being very poor. A portion of this grade will take into account the team’s average finish during that span of time.
Overall, it’s a rather fair ranking if you’re using the last three years as a snapshot. There are some serious quibbles, of course. The Edmonton Oilers‘ Oilogosphere gets a six for online activity, and the Wild receive a 10? The Tampa Bay Lightning (12) have better fans than the Pittsburgh Penguins (14)? The Boston Bruins (22) are behind the Los Angeles Kings (19)? In what, household income?
Read the entire entry here.
How do the Oilers fans only get a 6 for online activity? Am I missing something? Also, the Wings have good fans, even though they have had their troubles recently, but they surely haven’t been good enough to be considered top 4 in the league.
I’m sure these rankings will cause a fair bit of controversy…
