Hockey Night in Ottawa?

Cross-posted to Battle of Ontario.

As any Canadian knows, the CBC hates making money. They bleed cash with every show that they force feed Canadians except for Hockey Night in Canada. Hockey Night in Toronto as it's known in bitter Anti-Leaf circles is a ratings juggernaut which results in huge ad sales for the mother corporation.

Now, William Houston thinks the senators should be featured and Godd Till thinks that there are a couple of flaws in the argument that switching in ottawa for Toronto will build an audience and help viewers connect with the team as it heads into the playoffs. Houston points out that the ratings for the Detroit Red Wings-senators game would certainly have received a boost as it was a marque matchup on both sides and it was a lead-in to the Leafs game. He also mentions that it's ratings were around 200,000 viewers less than for an average Leafs game. So basically, even though the Leafs are in 28th place in the league they are averaging over 1.1 million viewers. That means that even dog matchups (Leafs-Lightning) draw huge numbers.

And that's without mentioning what sponsors will think of the move:

Switching out the Leafs also might not go over well with Hockey Night advertisers. The chance to connect with a fanatically loyal fanbase which consumes the product with dedication and verve no matter how vile it tastes and how sick it makes you: that's gotta be Molson's target audience right there.

And of course, the playoffs can be unpredictable:

And if CBC does put all its eggs in the black-and-red basket they'd certainly end up with them all over their face if Ottawa collapses in the early rounds of the playoffs. Nahh, that couldn't happen.