Hockey Weekend in America...is this on anyone's radar?

Yea, hockey can get expensive no doubt. Especially travel hockey (part of the reason I never played it). Hell, my beer league, with one game a week, costs about 150 bucks for each session, which is usually about 15 games.

 

Leaving Sudbury, a city four hours north of Toronto, after a game one night a couple years back we saw they had a huge pond hockey tourney set up on Ramsay Lake, which is right in the middle of town. It was going full blast that night with flood lights, bleachers and beer tents. Don't know if it is an annual thing but our guys were ready to get off the bus and lace 'em up again.

 

I was working on a series of stories on local hockey teams and players: midget to high school and juniors that I had hoped to run this weekend before I got injured on Wednesday and haven't been able to get out of bed. We'll run them next week, I guess.

Major bummed about not being able to go to the Heritage Classic. Rotten timing!! Should be a great show. The WHL's Calgary Hitmen and Regina Pats are going to play Monday at McMahon Stadium and they think they might set a CHL attendance record.

I applaud NBC for taking on something like this, going up against the Daytona 500 auto race. I have watched Hockey Day in Canada for a number of years and enjoyed it. I doubt NBC's package will reach that level, but these things take time to develop.

 

I am a puckhead in a large major-league northern market whose love for hockey is so great, the Winter Classic has been preempted for a rerun of Oprah and the Stanley Cup Finals for the Indy 500 banquet on the local NBC station, but the biggest reason it's on my radar is getting to gorge out on *two* NBC games tomorrow.

I applaud what NBC is trying to do. It's pretty smart to program a full day of hockey on a day when there are no NBA games during the day (All-Star Game) and the casual sports fan will want something to watch during the Daytona 500's 42 debris cautions ... when you're a niche sport (which, let's be honest, is every sport besides the NFL these days) with a fairly regionalized audience, you need "events" to get viewers in, and what better way to do so than to take a dead day in the sports calendar and fill it up with several games of *your* sport. The regionalized coverage in the 12:30-3:30 time slot is pretty genius, too, as it will likely draw in more local casual viewers.

 

Scheduling the most well-traveled team in the NHL doesn't hurt, either.

 

I spent most of my day watching hockey and I have a few observations:

First, NBC needs to tell this Liam a-hole to stay fucking home next year. He was so lethargic and lackadaisical the entire afternoon, you KNEW he was pissed NBC stuck him working Hockey Day in America. Jesus, his disdain was evident the whole afternoon.

* I thought it was bizarre, but interesting, NBC had the odd announcing combinations. Ken Daniels (from Detroit) did the Flyers-Rangers game, Pat Foley (from Chicago) did the Wings-Wild and some other asshole did the Caps-Sabers game. Hadn't heard Ken Daniels in years and just strange to hear Foley do a game not involving the Hawks.

* I am sick and fricking tired of having the Pens shoved down our throats every weekend. They are without their best two players and NBC thinks they are still at the top of the league. They don't even have Chris Kunitz back.

* For some reason this week, I didn't feel a reason to reach through my TV and strangle Mike Milbury. This is a good thing.

* All in all, I also watched the Kings-Isles game Friday and the Ottawa-Toronto game Saturday and I just can't get over how far superior CBC's broadcast of NHL games are to NBC's. Especially in HD.