I received an angry text from my son, Matt, on Saturday night. He is working as an overnight camp counselor in Northern Wisconsin for the summer. He also is a big Blackhawks fan.

On Saturday, Matt and his friends went to the local bowling alley to watch Game 2. One problem: the bowling alley didn’t have the game on its TVs.

Matt’s text: “Unbelievable. NBC (in Northern Wisconsin) doesn’t have the freaking game on.”

At least he didn’t use another word.

I explained to him that Game 2 was on NBC Sports Network, which the bowling alley didn’t have on its cable system. Finally after scrambling through the bars of Northern Wisconsin, and most the first period, they found a place that had the game.

Others, though, weren’t as fortunate. I have heard many complaints about Games 2 and 3 airing on NBC Sports Network as opposed to NBC.

Here’s some explanation and analysis:

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Why did NBC put those games on NBC Sports Network? The answer is simple. NBC wanted to expose viewers to its cable sports outlet.

While the move upset fans who don’t get NBC Sports Network, NBC got the desired result. Game 3 had nearly 4.01 million viewers, the second highest audience ever on NBC Sports Network (U.S./Japan Gold Medal Olympic soccer game had 4.4 million viewers), and an all-time high for hockey.

Game 2 on Saturday was close behind with just fewer than 3.964 million viewers.

However, and it’s a big however, the NHL is missing out on even higher ratings by agreeing to air the Final games on NBC Sports Network. Game 1 pulled in 6.4 million viewers on NBC.

Again, the reason is simple. NBC is available in 115 million homes. Currently, only 80 million homes receive NBC Sports Network.

That’s 35 million fewer homes who didn’t have access to NBC Sports Network for Games 2 and 3. Do the math, and it’s easy to see why the ratings were lower.

So if you’re the NHL and NBC, and you’re trying to grow hockey fan base, wouldn’t you want to be in as many homes as possible? Well, the answer is yes and no.

Yes, in the short term, the ratings would be higher for Final games on NBC. However, this is about the long term and growing NBC Sports Network.

NBC believes the main way to drive up ratings and more importantly, subscribers, is to air premium content on NBC Sports Network. Final games are premium content.

NBC Sports Network wants to grow its subscriber base from 80 million homes to nearly 100 million homes, or comparable to the distribution for ESPN. It wants potential viewers to call their cable operators and demand that the network either be added to their systems or put on a basic tier.

NBC knows it takes missing out on Stanley Cup Final games for people to make that call.

The NHL also has a vested interest in growing NBC Sports Network. The network is the main home for hockey, airing more than 100 regular season and playoff games. More subscribers means more potential hockey viewers.

And friends, cable is where this is all going when it comes to the biggest games. The BCS championship game already is on ESPN. Next year, the semifinals on Final Four Saturday will air on TBS. In 2016, TBS will begin a rotation where it gets the entire Final Four every other year. The large chunk of baseball’s postseason is on cable.

By the 2020s, it wouldn’t be a surprise if every title game in all the major sports, with the exception of the Super Bowl, is on cable.

As for this year, the remainder of the Stanley Cup Final will be on NBC, starting with Game 4 tonight. My son will be happy and so will people who don’t get NBC Sports Network.