Make Hockey more popular in the US?

With a POD no earlier than the 60s, how would you make Hockey as popular as Baseball, Football, and Basketball?
 
That's going to be difficult; since so much of the US doesn't get cold enough to solidly freeze over bodies of water large enough for hockey games the sport is never going to catch on as well as baseball, football, etc.
 
Sounds fun I'll create a shorty timeline.

- Following the 1980 miracle on ice gold medal by the US national team much public attention is brought to hockey.

- Just before the 1980 baseball season begins a player's strike breaks out which would lead to the entire season being cancelled as no agreement could be found.

- Realizing the marketing opportunity the NHL convinces the victorious US hockey team to tour the country playing a game against a different NHL team each week. The marketing plan is a huge success and public interest in hockey hits all time new heights.

- With this new interest and anticipation for the hockey season ticket sales hit record highs and TV rating end up only slightly below those of football.

- The NHL decides to take a page out of the playbook of European soccer convinces the AHL and IHL to join together as the NAHL (North American Hockey League).

- As the years go by the UHL (United Hockey Leagues), which makes up the NHL and NAHL, adds another league moving into a 3 tier system with 90 total teams between them. This new league, formed in 1989, capitalizes on the former lack of Canadian and northwestern American teams and is entitled the STHL (States and Territories Hockey League) but is referred to by most simply as the "ST."

- As the years pass by the ability to go to local games and simple public interest in the sport leads it to surpass all others in terms of popularity.
 
The 1960s would be too late for any subtle, natural-looking TLs. Americans were already tuning into football and basketball in impressive numbers, and baseball has been the king for a century.

Your best bet might be to have a very long string of gruesome injuries in televized football games. If football can be seen as just too brutal, it might suffer the same baklash that boxing and animal-fighting faced around that time as America's values changed, and either become a minor sport (boxing) or illegal (animal-fighting). The problem is, in OTL 1960s, it was hockey that was the just-a-bit-too-violent sport, whereas football was finally getting its act together with proper helmets and stricter penalties. So you'd also have to reform hockey ITTL, or else it won't take advantage of football's image problem.
 
Top