No, we aren't talking about a great deal of cross promotion between my Cincinnati Reds and my Columbus Blue Jackets or anything (although the thought of my right-handed doppelganger, Aaron Harang on skates should intimidate even the toughest hockey player), but Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) and the National Hockey League (NHL) are teaming up.

The two are going to start co-selling an online video package where out-of-market game subscriptions for both leagues will be marketed in tandem. According to The Sports Business Journal (SBJ), this deal "marks a rare level of cooperation between sports entities with limited common ownership."

General Electric Co.'s (NYSE: GE) NBC is thanking its lucky stars that the New York Rangers are in the National Hockey League playoffs as the month of May dawns. Otherwise, its ratings would probably be as pathetic as national numbers usually garnered by rodeo, lacrosse or the network's Thanksgiving Day tape dog show.

NBC yesterday saw a 44 percent surge in large-market Nielsen ratings for the double-overtime New York Rangers-Buffalo Sabres playoff game, won by the Rangers 2-1. NBC drew viewers in 1.3 percent of homes in the 56 largest U.S. media markets, which encompasses about two-thirds of the 111.4 million U.S. households with televisions. The game lasted more than four hours, ending at 6:15 pm Eastern Time, thus entering near-prime hours in the East.

Last year's comparable telecast on NBC, a contest between Anaheim and Colorado drew 0.9 percent of the same potential audience. Just to show how critical the New York market is, NBC's national coverage of the San Jose-Detroit game on Saturday had a 1.0 large-market rating, down 9.1 percent from coverage of a New Jersey-Carolina game a year ago.

Clearly, it's a case of as far as the Rangers go in these Stanley Cup playoffs, so goes the NHL's national television ratings on NBC, which has a revenue-sharing agreement with the league. Unlike other sports, the network pays the league zero dollars for rights to broadcast its games. Nonetheless, it's amazing that the sport is broadcast on network television at all.

Unfortunately for NBC, the ratings bump may not last.

The Rangers trail Buffalo two games to one and face an uphill battle to make it to the finals. Another big market team, the Detroit Red Wings, is in the playoffs as well, but chances are remote that they will wind up facing one another.

I know that most of the readers of BloggingStocks are American and therefore may not fully understand my (or any other Canadian's, for that matter) excitement to the news that the National Hockey League signed a content and advertising partnership with Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) YouTube for the 2006-2007 season. I mean, the NHL would actually provide daily short-form video content to YouTube starting this month. This is HUGE!

You see, while Americans have baseball, basketball and football, Canada has one national sports (and don't let anyone tell you it's Lacrosse) -- Hockey. Canadians live by it. Canada's culture is largely based on hockey. If you've seen our (funny) money or other national symbols, you would understand. So no wonder that when young (sort of) Canadian up-starters who have made it big want to realize a dream, they buy a hockey team. Mark Cuban bought the Mavericks, but Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) CEO, Jim Balsillie, bought the Pitsburgh Penguins (back in the beginning of October).

I know there are many hockey fans in the U.S., especially in those cities of the original six, and probably many more in the expansion cities. Therefore, my guess is that while I know for a fact that this YouTube deal with the NHL is going to be very popular up here, it would probably have its American fans as well.

Hopefully, this would be beneficial to both: YouTube gaining revenue while the NHL gets more exposure in the U.S. Seriously, watching a beauty breakaway goal is unmatched (and for the youngsters, hockey fights would be just as fun).

So for all those who were concerned on how Google was planning to monetize YouTube and deal with copyrights issue, here's one way to deal with both at the same time. Kudos!

[Photo TKnoxB]