Your Initial Stanley Cup Finals Schedule

Game 1 – May 30th at Detroit, 8:00 PM (NBC/CBC)
Game 2 – May 31st at Detroit, 8:00 PM (NBC/CBC)
Game 3 – June 2nd at Pittsburgh, 8:00 PM (VERSUS/CBC)
Game 4 – June 4th at Pittsburgh, 8:00 PM (VERSUS/CBC)

Your TV Guide and Open Thread For What We Hope is the Final Game of the Conference Finals

7:30 PM ET, Chicago vs. Detroit, Game 5 (DET Leads 3-1)

National TV (US): VERSUS (HD)
Play by Play: Mike Emrick
Color: Eddie Olczyk
Reporter: Bob Harwood

National TV (CANADA): CBC (HD)
Play by Play: Jim Hughson
Color: Craig Simpson
Reporter: Scott Oake

The Red Wings “Shaking in Their Boots” and Other Thoughts on Game 4

• Congrats to Daryl Reaugh, who achieved a new level of fame as an analyst this playoff season, covering two of the three premiere non-SCF series this season (PIT/WSH and PIT/CAR) and dropping a dose of Razor-y wisdom on everything he said.  And he made a moment stick, too.  Such as Maxime Talbot’s freak goal, when Razor noted: “O.M.G.”.  Razor provided an excellent dose of humor throughout the postseason, and actually knows how to drop a joke on the people.  Which brings us to…
• The utter stupidity and epic fail-ness of the VERSUS studio show.  Not only do they try to make jokey references (and bad ones at that), but they say them as if they aren’t a joke!  Brian Engblom’s “Let the Geno out of the bottle” reference just sounded like he was reading off a cue card.  All three of these miscreants need to be terminated at the end of the season, cause I simply can’t stand to hear another word.
• Usually, we won’t go after Bill Patrick, but he had a moment of fantastical stupidity during the postgame, when he uttered that whoever faces the Penguins in the Finals will be “shaking in their boots”.  Really, Bill?  The Stanley Cup Champion Red Wings shaking in their boots?  Please, good Lord, think before you ever say another word in your life.

Your TV Guide and Open Thread For an Off Day… Wait, You Mean There’s Hockey Tonight?

7:30 PM ET, Pittsburgh vs. Carolina, Game 4 (PIT Leads 3-0)

NOTE: NHL Network is airing a special pre-game edition of On the Fly at 7:00 PM ET, so check that out.

National TV (US): VERSUS (HD)
Play by Play: Joe Beninati
Color: Daryl Reaugh
Reporter: Chris Simpson

National TV (CANADA): CBC (HD)
Play by Play: Bob Cole
Color: Greg Millen
Reporter: Elliotte Friedman

It’s Not Charity, It’s More Like a Simple Thank You

If you value quality hockey blogging (and The Puck Stops Here) you should help out Paul Kukla.  That is all that needs to be said.

NBC’s Ratings Predictably Drop For Game 4 Stinker

According to NBC Spokesman Brian Walker, the network’s telecast of Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals drew a 1.5/4 overnight rating.  This is down quite a bit from the 2.0/5 that Game 1 drew, but keep in mind that Game 4 was a blowout that likely lost a lot of viewers along the way.

So we have our final search for ratings on NBC this season.  For the Finals, we’ll have overnight ratings from the numerous reporters who do primetime ratings on the various sites.  Thank you for letting us report this info to you this season, we’ll look forward to next year.

These Off Days Are Destroying Our Will

That is all.  We really don’t have anything new to say about the off days.  Except that they’re awful.  We really have no desire to watch Game 4 tonight, or Game 5 tomorrow.  Way to bolster my apathy NHL.

Anyway, it’ll be a light day.  We do promise you the ratings to Detroit/Chicago on NBC.  That you definitely will see.  Otherwise, look for something before the open thread, but hockey is definitely bugging us lately.

VERSUS’ Twitter Running Out of Good Historical Hockey Moments

 

From VERSUS’ NHL Twitter Page:

                                                    

VersusNHL  Versus NHL

This Day in Hockey! 1979: St. Louis Blues traded Curt Bennett to the Atlanta Flames, in exchange for Bobby Simpson.                                                                       about 1 hour ago from web

Thoughts From Game 4 of the Eastern Finals

• Did anyone else find Doc Emrick’s moratorium on the Blackhawks for the season a little early?  I mean, there’s 10 minutes left in a 6-1 Game 4 with the Wings headed home up 3-1 in the series.  But still, saying that this is in all likelihood the last home game for the Hawks at the United Center seems a little much at this juncture.  With two days in between games, who’s to say the Hawks can’t recover.
• That said, Joel Quenneville should be fined for the effort and the actions of his team on national television.  The way the Hawks played on Sunday should rightly shame its’ newfound fanbase and anyone who’s ever tried to convert someone to a hockey fanatic.  With no NBA, and NASCAR not going on until 5:00 PM and the only competition Indy and Golf, the NHL flatlined on a huge power play.
• Also, as far as Doc Emrick goes, we still love him and wish NBC would get rid of Eddie O. and/or Pierre.  The three-man booth simply doesn’t work.  Emrick would go two-to-three minutes at times without speaking so McGuire or Olczyk could get in some inane blabber about whatever.  What’s going to keep you watching a game: Emrick talking about the game or the players or just flat-out telling one of the 40 million awesome stories that Doc Emrick knows, or Eddie Olczyk saying nothing for three minutes.
• Speaking of Pierre and the horse he rode in on (or Mike Milbury), how pointless and unnecessary have those intermission segments become?  What once was fun live theatre that featured ample debate between the two former NHL coaches has now become more of the same blather we hear during the game telecasts.  Were we all waiting for Pierre to make some sort of fancy announcement about getting passed over for the Wild GM job?  Is the “Analysts take the role of the coaches” segment ever more meaningless (and trust us, it can get pretty meaningless in a good game) than during a 5-1 Red Wing lead after 40?  Something needs to be done about the network’s putrid, worthless studio show.  It’s clear that Milbury’s the star, so get him a better foil (a Ray Ferraro type) and get a real host (Bob Neumeier, come back with your hobo suits!) to set them up.  
• This is NBC’s last hockey telecast before June 9th.  Thank you, Hockey Gods.  We’ll have what will likely be an ugly ratings picture at around Noontime.  

Report: If Conf. Finals End Wednesday, NHL Could Finagle Stanley Cup Start to Saturday

The NHL appears to have been tinged by the long-standing report that the Finals would have an ungodly long, nine day wait for the Finals to start if the Wings close things out on Wednesday.  E.J. Hradek of ESPN has the story:

According to multiple sources, if the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings can wrap up their respective Conference final series by Wednesday night, the Stanley Cup finals likely would start on Saturday, May 30 in Detroit. In this scenario, Game 2 would be played on Sunday, May 31.

For the past several days, the league has been working behind the scenes with NBC, which has limited prime time real estate to devote to the Cup finals due to important “sweeps” week programming and the Tonight Show re-launch with new host Conan O’Brien.

The possible change would spare the league an embarrassing, television-created, eight-day hiatus and the competitive nature of the playoffs wouldn’t be compromised by an unusually long layoff for both clubs.

Thank God.  The two days in a row to start the series will still tick off quite a few people, but at least they avoid this craziness we’ve been talking about for awhile.

The series will likely look like this:

1. Saturday, May 30th
2. Sunday, May 31st
3. Tuesday, June 2nd (VERSUS)
4. Thursday, June 4th (VERSUS) 
5. Saturday, June 6th 
6. Monday/Tuesday, June 8th/9th