Posted on 05/12/2009 9:32:41 AM PDT by buccaneer81
You guys still can't have Rick Nash ;-) (Toronto sports media taunt us Blue Jackets fans about picking him up at the end of his contract.)
While I agree with many of the problems of being on VS his complaint is primarily based on a lie: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman took his league to Versus, then called the Outdoor Life Network, in 2005 because he didn’t like the treatment it was getting on ESPN.
Bettman didn’t go to OLN because he didn’t like the way ESPN was treating the league, ESPN opted out of their contract with the NHL, it was OLN or nothing. And to some level it’s been good for the league, for one thing OLN/ VS has been paying more than the contract ESPN opted out of, and they actually do put on supporting shows to help grow the audience. Slowly but surely VS is growing their audience and that will help the NHL. Meanwhile ESPN hasn’t made any kind of offer to bring the NHL back, so it’s still really VS or nothing.
Go Hurricanes!!! Game 6 tonight at RBC will rock, yay Carolina...
That’s what the NBC contract is, NBC pays nothing directly to the NHL, instead splitting the ad revenue. Unfortunately it’s only 20 odd games a year.
Absolutely. I'm a big Ray Whitney fan.
You do realize that picture is over a decade old and meanwhile fighting in the game keeps dropping.
Versus is owned by Comcast. You would think that Comcast then would feature Versus in a somewhat prominent location. You’d be wrong. On my box Versus is channel 126 near the local weather channels and CSPAN2.
I don’t know what the TV ratings are like, but hockey is HUGE down here in the Triangle. The ‘Canes are our only major-league professional team. This area is almost exclusively college sports-oriented (basketball, and to a lesser extent football), but the Hurricanes have won a lot of hearts. My boss’ll be at the RBC tonight for game 6!
}:-)4
ESPN basically told the NHL to go take a hike during the lockout. Even before that, they were treated like the poor step-child, relegated to ESPN2 so long as there was not a poker tournament or Australian Kickboxing scheduled.
Winning a cup will do that! My Habs have been 16 years now without one.
I'd love to see it, but what is Disney's incentive to sign back up for the NHL on ESPN? They cater to the hip-hop generation, and the NBA isn't going to be kicked out of prime time during the NBA playoffs for the NHL playoffs. I don't trust that Bettman is smart enough to expand TV viewership opportunities and television exposure.
Here's another example of Bettman's TV exposure idiocy. I'm in Omaha, 550+ miles and 8 hours away from Denver. A couple of years ago I went to order the Center Ice package so that I could get the Avs games after their owner backed out of Fox Sports RM and formed his own "Altitude" network. Guess what? Omaha is considered home team area for the Avs, so their games were blacked out on Center Ice subscriptions in Omaha. I'm closer to the NHL cities of St. Paul, St. Louis, and Chicago, not that those teams games should have been blacked out either. The only way to get the Avs games would have been to get a dish, which I didn't want to do. Oh, and neither of the 2 local cable companies carried Altitude.
I'd love to see Bettman replaced with a hockey guy - someone like Scotty Bowman or Sweet-Lou Lamoriello or Ken Holland (Detroit GM).
That should be the straw to break Bettman's back, but it won't be.
Holy cow, talk about nonstop action.
I've been to a minor league hocky game (Milw Admirals) and the guys in the minors are every bit as big as any in the NFL with one major difference: the NHL's players are tougher, meaner and in one helluva lot better condition than anyone we've seen on the gridiron -- by far.
Constant action and while on ICE SKATES!!
Unreal.
My bride & I wondered why the game's been so woefully ignored.
Then we realized who plays hockey.
Can't have real men who show their passion and love of a game like that, can we? And of course not to forget, they're nearly all the wrong color.
I've been getting them on Fox Sports South.
Go Canes!
Funny thing about the Pens/Caps — I’m getting the series on the local sports channel, and VS is blacked out, with no alternate channel for the Canes/Bruins (for dropping by during intermissions, at lest).
Hockey is just like basketball, except that men play hockey. :-)
That's how it was here in Columbus during the first round Jackets-Wings series.
True. Ty Cobb was possibly the meanest man in American sports history.
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