CHICAGO — When the Chicago Blackhawks and the Anaheim Ducks met in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, the Blackhawks’ owner, Rocky Wirtz, had an idea about where besides Chicago he would find a jittery audience: Rockefeller Center, home of NBC, the N.H.L.’s broadcast partner.
“They probably had candles lit, praying we would win that game,” Wirtz said this week.
The Blackhawks prevailed, and NBC was rewarded with nearly 5.5 million viewers for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals Wednesday, another Chicago win. That was nearly a million more than the average for last year’s matchup between the Rangers and Los Angeles Kings, featuring the country’s two biggest markets.