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No star power. Boring games. Poor marketing. Failure to grab a toehold in America's sports culture.
When it comes to pinning down a reason for declining or stagnant hockey ratings, pick a reason, any reason.
They all work, to some extent.
Unless you have a High Definition TV, or played the game and can appreciate its away-from-the-puck nuances, hockey just doesn't seem to be working as must-see TV. It is clearly a sport more enjoyable to watch in person, which probably explains the NHL's inability to lure new viewers.
That's the conventional wisdom. There are those, like television consultant Neil Pilson, who think bashing hockey's ratings is tedious.
Sure, hockey has its problems. Two teams went had bankruptcy issues last season, a recent report put together by the NHL claims $300-million in losses, and a labor squabble is looming (though Pilson says he is the only one predicting that the players and owners will come to terms and avoid a strike).
Not only that, after this season, hockey's television contract with ABC/ESPN expires with little chance of a bigger deal on the horizon.
But hockey's ratings, which last year remained mostly flat, may be the least of the league's troubles and more a victim of unrealistic expectations.
"Hockey is what it is," Pilson said. "It just has to be accepted for the sport that it is. And the media has to stop; it has created a level of expectations for the game that can't be attained."
Should those expectations be around the 1.2 average rating the first two games of the Stanley Cup final pulled last year, or the 4.6 that Game 7 registered? Ultimately, that will decide who bids on the NHL next year, and more important, how much they bid.
"Ratings are a vote by the American public," Pilson said. "If that's what the public says, then you have to model your economics after that. You can't build on a 5 (rating) when the public is giving you a 2. Television has begun to appreciate that."
ABC's $120-million annual investment hasn't panned out - bowling, figure skating and NCAA women's softball championship games have pulled higher numbers.
In some cities, like Detroit, ratings are hardly an issue. But in non-traditional markets such as Tampa, the success of the team has to drive interest. Even that theory, however, has its holes.
Last season, for example, with the Lightning's success in the playoffs, ratings for its games were impressive. Did that pull in new hockey fans?
Well, not exactly. Once the Lightning exited from the playoffs, local ratings returned to their previously dismal state (0.8 for the season), well below the national average. Overall, the Tampa/St. Petersburg market rated 41st out of 53 metered markets.
That said, Pilson says the hand-wringing over hockey ratings is misplaced. Sure, compared with the other major sports, they are remarkably low. But because so few Americans actually grow up playing the sport, compared with baseball, football and basketball, hockey ratings actually have overachieved, he says.
"Television coverage of hockey has been very good," Pilson said.
Now if just more people would notice.
LIGHTNING FLASH: Although Sunshine Network doesn't subscribe to Nielsen Media Research for ratings (due to a disagreement years ago over the sampling data), it measured last season's success in this year's advertising sales, which have been up.
"We've been reminding people how exciting last year was," Sunshine general manager Cathy Weeden said. "We always worked for years for this, always kept telling ourselves, this is the Lightning's breakout year. And you know what - it finally happened."
The Lightning weren't the only breakout team last year. Though Sunshine had been around for years, its squabble with Time Warner during the height of the Lightning season - keeping some games off most local systems - as well as the playoff frenzy did more for the station becoming a regular stop for local sports viewers than anything it had previously done.
This year, Sunshine will do 60 Lightning games (28 home and 32 away), and is producing an extended postgame show for 14 of them.