There were several other factors that likely affected viewership. The game featured two of the league's lower-tier teams (in fact the Blackhawks have the NHL's worst record), it was a blowout — the Blues won 6-2 — and the event had been played at Wrigley before so that novelty factor was gone.

The Chicago Blackhawks would likely prefer to play indoors, thank you very much. The storied franchise is winless in all five of the NHL’s showcase Winter Classic events they have played in. On the other hand,

Only 920,000 viewers watched the Hawks' blowout loss on Tuesday on TNT and TruTV, according to Sports Media Watch.