Posted on 05/29/2009 5:16:20 PM PDT by shove_it
NEW YORK -- The NHL went against its previous plan, pushing up the start of the Stanley Cup Finals to avoid a long layoff.
The league announced Wednesday night that Detroit will host Pittsburgh on Saturday night in Game 1 of the first championship rematch in 25 years.
Last week, the NHL said the Finals would begin June 5 if both conference finals were not decided by Tuesday.
Plan B was put in place because NBC and the league didn't want to stunt the excitement about the matchup that has a potential to draw nontraditional viewers.
Detroit and Pittsburgh, though, will be forced to play on back-to-back days for the first time in the Cup finals since Montreal and Los Angeles in 1993.
Game 3 is Tuesday night in Pittsburgh.
WJR in Detroit says NBC made this decision...NHL is mad about this, say this would never happen to the NBA or NFL.
Airborne, where are ya? Come on out and play.
I am so glad that Versus has finally fixed their horrible white balance problem. They fixed it about half way through the playoffs. Somebody must have been fired over it given then timing. The problem has existed ever since Vurses took over the NHL a few years ago. It was a whiteout ice problem that no other network had. I think it was Versus attempt to create “excitement” by overexposing the ice. Foolish,and now gone, thank goodness.
They do not want to compete with the much better rated NBA finals.
I know, too bad really....hockey players are great men and athletes, I wish the public could get to know them better.
If people gave it a chance it would really catch on.
An NHL game is one of the most exciting spectacles to see in person, though. I've taken a number of completely disinterested people to see the NJ Devils play over the years, and in every case their reaction was: "Man, I had NO IDEA this game was so awesome!"
I’m probably a minority here, but the hockey and basketball seasons are way too long. Stanley Cup and NBA finals are not decided until mid-June. And baseball goes so late in the fall; this year, game 7 of the World Series is scheduled for November 5th. And the Super Bowl is now always in February.
Do they really get that much more money and higher TV ratings by having a winter sports championship played in the summertime??????????
Or the boys of summer playing in the cold of mid autumn????
Baseball, football and hockey seasons have all been lengthened over the last 50 years by adding regular-season games, but the biggest impact in terms of calendar time dedicated to the sport comes from expanded playoffs. Baseball added the division playoffs in the late 1960s and then changed to three divisions and added a wild-card team a few years ago. The NFL re-aligned the divisions and added a "bye" week in the middle of the season for each team. The NHL Stanley Cup playoffs have been four rounds long since the late 1970s, I think -- but the first round was expanded from a best-of-five to a best-of-seven sometime in the 1980s.
I've long said that a 50-game NHL season (as opposed to the current 82 games) would be ideal -- with a playoff season that ended right around the time the hockey World Championships take place (late April through early May).
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