If you’re a fan of hockey, you can’t help but say that the Stanley Cup Finals have been outstanding. With each game, ratings have continued to climb, albeit modestly, and given the excitement of Game 4 which saw the Pens knot of the Series 2-2 with the Red Wings, chances are good that they will continue that way, even if it did go up against Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

The increased interest has not been lost on NBC, according to Bruce Dowbiggin of the Globe and Mail:

Now, NBC and the NHL are set to announce an extension to their relationship for another two years, past the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and Stanley Cup playoffs.

It will likely be a continuation of the no-money-down/split-revenues-after-costs arrangement that has existed since the two sides fell into each other’s arms after the NHL lockout in 2004-05.

Games 1 and 2 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals on NBC earned a 3.0 overnight rating over the weekend, or 5.33 million average viewers households in the US, up 11 percent from the 2.7 for NBC’s first two Stanley Cup telecasts last year.

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