The Sharks have 3 more games on Versus than the rest of California, for a total of 4 games. Ducks have no games, and the Kings have one.

The full Sharks schedule:

Every single one of these games I predicted would be on Versus outside of the Colorado game, but that was because I didn’t believe Versus had the rights to Thursdays.

Such is the life of a Californian hockey fan; there is not one national game televised from San Jose, one game is on the second half of a back-to-back, and one game is at the end of a 6 game road trip. Granted, this is pretty much standard for all hockey fans west of the Mississippi; only seven games are broadcasted from east of the Mississippi, and all seven are of either the Dallas Stars or the Colorado Avalanche.

This is despite having the highest-rated regular season game in Versus history against the Bruins, and having a nationally watched (if not broadcast) game against the Red Wings. They won the President’s Trophy, set several NHL records, and completely dominated other teams. And yet only four nationally televised games.

The entire national televised system is messed up – Versus acts like the Western Conference is the red-headed step-child of the NHL, and NBC just refuses to acknowledge that there is a west of the Mississippi. The NHL should mandate a minimum number of Western Conference games that have to be broadcast – and I don’t mean pseudo-west teams like Detroit and Chicago, who get a whole bunch of games anyways. I mean trying to get more people to know about the teams on the west coast. Yes, there are hockey teams there. They are actually pretty competitive. And there are fans who probably love hockey just as much – if not more – than those teams who are in those markets who get a half-dozen or more Versus/NBC games.

I don’t know why I am even advocating for more national games – the announcers Versus choose are always annoying and no nothing about the teams they are talking about, particularly the Sharks. But the complete imbalance in games broadcast is unfair, and the NHL needs to rectify it.