The Extra Week off Between the Championship game and Super Bowl

For as long as I can remember there has been a week of rest for the teams in between the AFC and NFC championship games and their Super Bowl competition. The NFL does this so that they can add even more media coverage to to their already media filled extravaganza. The Super Bowl is such a huge event for America the I do not see them losing ratings due to their loss of a week to publicize the game. The same amount of people are going to watch this game regardless of how many weeks off their are in between the games. For the sports world in general these weeks are fairly slow so I have a few suggestions as to what some of the leagues can do to take advantage of the sports void.
Take the NHL for example, what they are doing this year is extremely smart for their sport for several reasons. They have their All Star game celebrations in place for this coming weekend. For hockey fans this gives us a perfect sporting event to watch this weekend regardless of our favorite teams because there are players from every team around the league playing in the skills contest and the game itself.
A second smart thing that the NHL did was their choice of a location for this years event. It will be taking place in Montreal which is celebrating its 100th year of fine hockey. The people in Montreal are some of the greatest hockey fans in the world and they deserve to have this game played in their city as they celebrate the Canadians 100th season.
The NHL loses points in my book for not having enough coverage of these events. The skills competition and the game itself are being shown on the Versus TV network. The NHL should be willing to take less TV money for these events to gain exposure for the sport and Versus just does not have the subscriber base to give them the kind of exposure they need. Especially in a week where there is not much sport action taking place this game belongs on a bigger network so that the casual and beginner hockey fans can enjoy the game along with the die hards.
One last hockey article I came across was this one where a Chicago man won a million dollars because the Black hawks scored at exactly 10 minutes into the 3rd period. They have been having a contest in Chicago where if they scored 10 minutes into the 3rd all season and the odds are not in favor of the chosen fan in the contest. I thought it was great that a fan actually won the prize.