To grow the game or not to grow the game

Terry Frei wrote a great article I think every hockey fan should read. He made some really good points, and I agree with him.

The pursuit of fans: How far is far enough for the NHL?
"Should the league make the attempt to convert the uninitiated a top priority, especially in territories with neither hockey tradition nor public rinks? Or should it abandon that as a counterproductive quest for the Impossible Dream?"
Later he concludes.
"I usually settle on a happy medium, which seems to be the league's unofficial position. Especially while dealing with in-arena and local broadcasting issues, the trick is to avoid turning off the hard core with pursuit of the "new" fans. I'm passionately against some of the bush-league stunts that plague us -- screaming hucksters on microphones in the stands during stoppages, childish implorations on scoreboard screens and generic U.S. game-night experiences that seem to have been dreamed up by geeks with sports marketing degrees who rose to the top of dual basketball-hockey ownership organizations."

While surfing during the Red Wings game last night I found that article. Then I went to another site and found this article written by Larry Dobrow. I'm thinking he has a lot of reasons why attendance might be down in some hockey markets. Then I get toward the end and he contradicts himself where hockey is concerned.
"Hockey, maybe? My most recent NHL experience, on Tuesday night, was loud and expensive, but no other sport benefits as much from in-person consumption as does hockey. Them's guys done skated fast!"