Dear NHL,

And now it's time for another malcontent letter to the NHL that they will probably never see.

Dear NHL,

I know that you're making the best of what you can. The last lockout and subsequent lost season really hurt the league. But you're rebounding nicely. I'll still second guess your decision to ally yourself with NBC/Comcast, and I have to wonder if there's a conflict of interest (for those who don't know, the owner of Comcast also owns the Flyers), but that's not my topic at hand.

The NHL Network is a neat idea. A channel that is hockey 24/7 is something I could really get on board with...if it weren't such a premium channel. You see, NHL, just because the fans who go to hockey games can afford to shell out over $20 a seat doesn't mean that every hockey fan will, or even than every hockey fan can.

I'm sure that one of the league's biggest goal is to grow the league in the USA. It already has a great hold on Canada and parts of Europe, but being thought of as number four of the big four American sports shouldn't leave you content. And I'm sure it doesn't.

If you want to grow hockey in the USA, you need to make it more accessible. The World Juniors, which some people look at as a preview of the Olympics (which I can't understand), just finished. Unless you follow hockey closely (like the entire country of Canada) or watch hockey headlines, you don't even know that the US just beat Canada for the gold medal. Why doesn't anyone know? Because the games from this tournament were broadcast on the premium only NHL Network.

Hockey should be for everyone. It's bad enough that it is too expensive for most people to play, but if someone wants to watch it an international tournament, it shouldn't be undoable. I mean, seriously...NBC couldn't put the Biggest Loser premier off for one more week?

I'm sure that the you know what you're doing, the NHL is recovering...but shouldn't you reach out to a broader audience if you can?