Just what is a country that doesn't care about Hockey, doing without NHL broadcasts
John Davidson was in Vancouver Wednesday night coaching one team of top prospects in the Canadian Hockey League against another squad of 17-year-olds coached by Don Cherry. Normally, Davidson would be calling a Rangers game for the MSG Network, but, of course, the National Hockey League is in the fourth month of a lockout. This report was written by Richard Sandomir and appeared in The New York Times
"It just doesn't seem right," Davidson said in a telephone interview. He has been skiing in Western Canada, doing some radio and television commentary and watching tapes of European hockey to while away his time.
"People ask me," he said, " 'Can't you do something?' When people hear the numbers, that it's a $2.3 billion business, they wonder, why can't this be fixed?"
He said he was pleased to be coaching the prospects - the top 40 for the coming draft, according to N.H.L. scouts - "because it gets me back in hockey."
Bill Clement, ESPN's lead hockey analyst, has been spending time with his family, helping his son and daughter with their homework, vacationing in Hawaii with his mother, tearing up carpeting in his house and using his chainsaw on his property. Next week, he will be the guest host of ESPN2's "Cold Pizza."
"I miss being around the rinks, the guys, the buzz you feel before a game," he said. "I try to follow what's going on in Europe, but it's meaningless." He said that not many of the N.H.L. players now with European teams "will play as hard as they do here."
"They're treading water," Clement said. "They have no team allegiance. No Stanley Cup."
Some European games are being shown in Canada; last night, Rogers SportsNet showed the Swedish Elite game between Sodertalje and Timra.
This was to be the first season of NBC Universal Sports' new revenue-sharing deal with the league. Davidson and Mike Emrick were to be the lead announcers.
Its first slate of regionalized games, including a Rangers-Bruins broadcast, was to have aired on Jan. 8. In the first quarter of the year, 15 hours of N.H.L. time has been supplanted by programming like the "Race Across America," an Ironman-style event, or returned to local stations to show what they choose.
This was also to be the first season that ESPN was not scheduled to televise regular-season N.H.L. games. ESPN2 had all the games; so far college basketball has filled in, doubling last year's 0.2 N.H.L. rating.
David Berson, an ESPN senior vice president for programming, said that ESPN2, for the first time, was to carry all its games exclusively, so the absence of competing local telecasts would most likely push ESPN2's rating above last year's.
ESPN2 has not been without hockey: it showed World Junior Hockey Championship games from Grand Forks, N.D., and will also televise the American Hockey League All-Star Game next month and the N.C.A.A. men's Frozen Four semifinals in April. The championship game will be on ESPN.
But ESPN2 has not made any deal for European games.
"It was an option but we didn't give much time to it," Berson said.
Randy Freer, the chief operating officer of Fox Sports Net, said he looked at certain packages of European hockey, "but none made sense as a business deal."
"They were asking for more than we were willing to commit," he said.
He said that with time to plan for the hockey lockout, the Fox Sports Net regional networks added National Basketball Association and college hockey games and will begin its Arena Football League schedule later this month.
Freer said that in some regions, like Phoenix, replacement programming has rated higher than Coyotes games did last year, but in Detroit, nothing has adequately replaced Red Wings games, which draw scintillating ratings.
At the MSG Network and Fox Sports New York, which has been without Rangers, Islanders and Devils games, the fill-ins have included some of the three teams' classic games, as well as college hockey and basketball, Hartford Wolf Pack and Canadian Football League games.
CSTV did not have scramble to add college hockey to fill a gap in its schedule. It had planned a 33-game package of games that features rivalries like Boston College-Boston University and Michigan-Michigan State and will culminate with the women's Frozen Four at the end of March. But it added Emrick, the play-by-play voice of the Devils on FSNY, to call some games.
CSTV has not grown large enough to be rated, but Brian Bedol, the network's president, said he had received several hundred e-mail messages thanking him for showing hockey while the N.H.L. has been dark.
"We've gotten great feedback from the conferences and fans who love to watch hockey and grasp the unique qualities of collegiate hockey," Bedol said. "People are watching collegiate hockey who otherwise might not." And, he added, "There's nothing more fun than a marching band at a hockey arena."
But that isn't enough for an N.H.L. lifer like Clement. He wants to know how the Rangers look and how the Flyers shape up against Montreal and Toronto.
"The average person doesn't care about hockey when it's being played," Clement, the former Flyer and Flame, said. "It's a smaller fan base than other sports, but in New York people tell me, 'I miss it, I can't get into college hockey.' " This report was written by Richard Sandomir and appeared in The New York Times
"It just doesn't seem right," Davidson said in a telephone interview. He has been skiing in Western Canada, doing some radio and television commentary and watching tapes of European hockey to while away his time.
"People ask me," he said, " 'Can't you do something?' When people hear the numbers, that it's a $2.3 billion business, they wonder, why can't this be fixed?"
He said he was pleased to be coaching the prospects - the top 40 for the coming draft, according to N.H.L. scouts - "because it gets me back in hockey."
Bill Clement, ESPN's lead hockey analyst, has been spending time with his family, helping his son and daughter with their homework, vacationing in Hawaii with his mother, tearing up carpeting in his house and using his chainsaw on his property. Next week, he will be the guest host of ESPN2's "Cold Pizza."
"I miss being around the rinks, the guys, the buzz you feel before a game," he said. "I try to follow what's going on in Europe, but it's meaningless." He said that not many of the N.H.L. players now with European teams "will play as hard as they do here."
"They're treading water," Clement said. "They have no team allegiance. No Stanley Cup."
Some European games are being shown in Canada; last night, Rogers SportsNet showed the Swedish Elite game between Sodertalje and Timra.
This was to be the first season of NBC Universal Sports' new revenue-sharing deal with the league. Davidson and Mike Emrick were to be the lead announcers.
Its first slate of regionalized games, including a Rangers-Bruins broadcast, was to have aired on Jan. 8. In the first quarter of the year, 15 hours of N.H.L. time has been supplanted by programming like the "Race Across America," an Ironman-style event, or returned to local stations to show what they choose.
This was also to be the first season that ESPN was not scheduled to televise regular-season N.H.L. games. ESPN2 had all the games; so far college basketball has filled in, doubling last year's 0.2 N.H.L. rating.
David Berson, an ESPN senior vice president for programming, said that ESPN2, for the first time, was to carry all its games exclusively, so the absence of competing local telecasts would most likely push ESPN2's rating above last year's.
ESPN2 has not been without hockey: it showed World Junior Hockey Championship games from Grand Forks, N.D., and will also televise the American Hockey League All-Star Game next month and the N.C.A.A. men's Frozen Four semifinals in April. The championship game will be on ESPN.
But ESPN2 has not made any deal for European games.
"It was an option but we didn't give much time to it," Berson said.
Randy Freer, the chief operating officer of Fox Sports Net, said he looked at certain packages of European hockey, "but none made sense as a business deal."
"They were asking for more than we were willing to commit," he said.
He said that with time to plan for the hockey lockout, the Fox Sports Net regional networks added National Basketball Association and college hockey games and will begin its Arena Football League schedule later this month.
Freer said that in some regions, like Phoenix, replacement programming has rated higher than Coyotes games did last year, but in Detroit, nothing has adequately replaced Red Wings games, which draw scintillating ratings.
At the MSG Network and Fox Sports New York, which has been without Rangers, Islanders and Devils games, the fill-ins have included some of the three teams' classic games, as well as college hockey and basketball, Hartford Wolf Pack and Canadian Football League games.
CSTV did not have scramble to add college hockey to fill a gap in its schedule. It had planned a 33-game package of games that features rivalries like Boston College-Boston University and Michigan-Michigan State and will culminate with the women's Frozen Four at the end of March. But it added Emrick, the play-by-play voice of the Devils on FSNY, to call some games.
CSTV has not grown large enough to be rated, but Brian Bedol, the network's president, said he had received several hundred e-mail messages thanking him for showing hockey while the N.H.L. has been dark.
"We've gotten great feedback from the conferences and fans who love to watch hockey and grasp the unique qualities of collegiate hockey," Bedol said. "People are watching collegiate hockey who otherwise might not." And, he added, "There's nothing more fun than a marching band at a hockey arena."
But that isn't enough for an N.H.L. lifer like Clement. He wants to know how the Rangers look and how the Flyers shape up against Montreal and Toronto.
"The average person doesn't care about hockey when it's being played," Clement, the former Flyer and Flame, said. "It's a smaller fan base than other sports, but in New York people tell me, 'I miss it, I can't get into college hockey.' " This report was written by Richard Sandomir and appeared in The New York Times
posted by SportsDoc at 1:22 AM
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