One last big night for Blackhawks on Comcast SportsNet

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: Courtesy of Phil Rosenthal at the Chicago Tribune: : : "Blackhawks TV: One last big night for Comcast SportsNet : : Moving on to a conference final match-up against the San Jose Sharks, the Chicago Blackhawks leave behind more than just Vancouver. Tuesday's Game 6 second-round playoff victory also takes them away from Comcast SportsNet Chicago, which has enjoyed an unprecedented surge in hockey-fueled viewership. : Tuesday's 5-1 clincher against the Canucks was the Hawks' second-highest rated game ever on the team's cable home, which is partly owned by the Blackhawks, Cubs, Sox and Bulls. It averaged a 9.93 household rating, which translates to roughly 347,600 homes, surpassed only by the 10.14 household rating for Game 3 of the Hawks-Canucks series six nights earlier. : More impressive, perhaps, is the fact that the Blackhawks' last five games on CSN, dating back to the first-round clincher against Nashville on April 26, now account for the five most-watched programs in the channel's 5 1/2 year history, ahead of anything featuring the Cubs, White Sox or Bulls. : Comcast SportsNet Chicago will continue to do postgame shows going forward for the remainder of the hockey postseason. But the conference finals and, should the Hawks advance, the Stanley Cup championship series are available only through the National Hockey League's TV partners, Versus and NBC. (Click here to see where Versus is available in your ZIP code.) : CSN's telecast of the Hawks' Game 5 loss to Vancouver averaged a 9.47 household rating. Other recent highs included victories in Game 2 against the Canucks (8.74) and the decisive Game 6 against Nashville (9.24). : All are marked improvements on the Hawks' previous Comcast SportsNet record -- a 7.82 rating for last season's come-from-behind Game 6 second-round clincher against the Canucks -- which had stood for nearly a year. : Versus averaged an 8.76 household rating here in Chicago for Friday's Game 4 last week against the Canucks, despite a glitch that kept many customers of Wide Open West who had paid for WOW's digital tier to receive the channel from seeing anything for much of the first period. : WOW said earlier this week it was investigating what caused those watching the standard Versus channel to receive a blank screen. The high definition version of Versus on WOW was unaffected. But WOW has yet to disclose the findings of that investigation. : No other local systems had trouble receiving the secondary feed from Versus, enabling Chicago area viewers to see the Hawks game in its entirety even as early Versus coverage of the Boston-Philadelphia game went into overtime. Some DirecTV and Dish subscribers seemed unaware that those carriers had provided a second channel especially for the start of the Blackhawks game. : Versus' Game 4 numbers were a major step up from the 5.8 the channel got here for its exclusive coverage of the Hawks' lopsided Game 1 loss to Vancouver. It was also an improvement on the its previous Chicago high, a 7.1 household rating during last year's conference finals against Detroit. : Nationally, Versus has given the NHL its best ratings since 2001, when it was on ESPN and ESPN2. Part of that may be attributed to greater awareness of the channel and improved distribution, especially compared to a year ago."

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