Last night, ESPNChicago.com’s Jon Greenberg sent out this tweet:

We need a Blackhawks-Pro Bowl Chicago ratings story tomorrow from @Sherman_Report.

I tweeted back that I thought football, even a lousy Pro Bowl game, still would top hockey in Chicago. Turns out I only was partially right.

The Blackhawks-Detroit game did a 6.31 local rating on Comcast SportsNet Chicago, shattering the regular-season mark set last Tuesday (see below). Meanwhile, the Pro Bowl had a slim edge with a 6.44 rating on WMAQ-Ch. 5.

However–a big however–the Hawks game peaked with a 8.09 local rating (282,000 homes) at the end of the Hawks’ thrilling 2-1 overtime victory. The Pro Bowl, meanwhile, only had a 7.79 peak early in the telecast. Obviously, a few of those bored football viewers in Chicago switched over to the more compelling Hawks game.

All in all, the hockey rating is astounding, considering just a few years ago the Hawks were celebrating if they did a 1.0 rating.

Here are the details from CSN Chicago:

Comcast SportsNet, the television home for the most games and most comprehensive coverage of the 6-0-0 Chicago Blackhawks, delivered its highest Blackhawks regular season rating ever last evening (January 27) — a 6.31 household rating for its live coverage of the Blackhawks home ice battle against the division rival Detroit Red Wings.

For last night’s thrilling 2-1 OT victory by the Blackhawks, Comcast SportsNet attracted approx. 220,000 households for the entire game and posted an 8.09 “peak” rating during the 8:15 PM quarter-hour (approx. 282,000 households).  The 6.31 single game regular season ratings record on Comcast SportsNet shatters the previous record set just five days earlier on January 22 for the Blackhawks home opener vs. St. Louis (5.40).  Source for all ratings information is provided by Nielsen Media Research overnights.

Including last night’s record-breaking rating on Comcast SportsNet, the Top 4 highest-rated Blackhawks regular season games in network history have all occurred over the past six days…note the following:

1)    6.31 –      Blackhawks vs. DET (January 27, 2013)

2)     5.40 –       Blackhawks vs. STL (January 22, 2013)

3)     5.13 –       Blackhawks at DAL (January 24, 2013)

4)     4.39 –       Blackhawks at CBJ (January 26, 2013)

5)     4.35 –       Blackhawks vs. VAN (March 5, 2010)

Comcast SportsNet was also the #1-highest rated television network in the Chicago market last night in the key advertising demos of Men 18-49, Men 25-54 & Adults 35-64 for the entire length of the game (6:00-8:45 PM).  The network was #2 overall in the market in the demo category of Adults 25-54.