This tweet from Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo! Sports says it all.

Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final did a 28.0 rating Wednesday on WMAQ-Ch. 5. That means nearly 1 million homes in the Chicago area were tuned into the game; 1 local ratings point is worth nearly 35,000 homes.

By comparison, NBC’s coverage of the Bears-San Francisco game on Sunday night last September did a 31.2 local rating. Keep in mind, it only was Game 1 Wednesday. The ratings will continue to grow for the Blackhawks-Tampa Bay series.

Meanwhile, the game pulled a 4.23 overnight rating of national markets on NBC; 1 national ratings point is worth more than 1 million homes. It was NBC’s second-highest rating for a Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. The first was the triple overtime Game 1 of the Blackhawks-Boston series, which did a 4.8 overnight rating.