The National Hockey League dropped the puck on its 2010-11 season with reports of strong growth in its digital distribution platforms.

The league said NHL.com totaled its second-most regular-season video starts ever this past Sunday, adding that unique visitors to the site were up 19 percent compared with last year’s opening weekend, and opening day saw a 13 percent gain versus the 2009-10 opener. Video starts were up 131 percent on opening day and 209 percent on opening weekend compared with last season.

The NHL’s online success is taking place globally, as its top 10 countries in terms of gains in unique visitors versus the 2009-10 season were: Finland (up 68 percent), the Russian Federation (58 percent), Slovakia (Slovak Republic) (53 percent), Germany (42 percent), the Czech Republic (37 percent), United Kingdom (35 percent), Switzerland (33 percent), Sweden (27 percent), Canada (15 percent), and the United States (12 percent).

NHL GameCenter LIVE, which allows fans to watch live games online, posted a 30 percent increase in subscriptions when compared with the same period last season, and the first day of the season brought with it the highest single-day subscription total ever.

And the league reported hundreds of thousands of downloads of its mobile applications for the Google/Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, and iPhone platforms.