Hockey Media News, Cutting Through the Nonsense
March 20, 2010 8 Comments
Toronto vs. Montreal, 7PM, CBC/NHL Net
Play by Play: Jim Hughson
Color: Craig Simpson and Guy Carbonneau
Reporter: Elliot Friedman
Detroit vs. Vancouver, 10PM, CBC
Play by Play: Mark Lee
Color: Kevin Weekes
Reporter: Scott Oake
Steve Lepore is the Managing Editor of Puck the Media. His work has been featured in The Hockey News. Feel free to contact him at stevemlepore@gmail.com
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Once again, I feel compelled to mention that the game featuring a mediocre club and a truly bad one (MTL-TOR) gets the #1 broadcast crew while the game featuring two of the top four teams in the NHL gets the secondary crew
Steve, if only for my own sanity, if it’s at all possible for you to get some kind of rationale from CBC on these choices, I would really appreciate it.
Actually the late game is Vancouver vs Detroit, not San Jose.
Josh you need to take a deep breath. One week you complain that the Habs don’t get Jim Hughson. Tonight they do and you still aren’t happy!
It was a good game with an even better result!
I didn’t complain that the Habs didn’t get Jim Hughson – that was the other guy in the thread. I complained that Jim Hughson isn’t working the most meaningful games each weekend.
Did CBC “promote” him to call meaningless Leaf games? Maybe he would have turned down his promotion if he’d known this was how he was going to be used!
Again, I’d just point out that no other network would use its announcers this way: If the NFL Jets suck, Jim Nantz is not going to be calling their games just because they are the New York team, if the Knicks suck, ABC/ESPN is not going to be sending Mike Breen to MSG for them, and on and on… it’s embarrassing that the CBC treats the 29th team in the league as the big show every weekend.
But I can see how a Leaf fan would have trouble understanding this!
Just so there’s no confusion here’s how I feel: the Canucks are the best team in Canada right now and going forward. CBC should have its best people (Jim Hughson, Elliotte Friedman, etc) working the Canucks’ games, not by any means the Leaf games.
The Jets and Knicks won’t get the biggest ratings across the country though. The Leafs do.
OK we know you don’t like Bob Cole but what’s wrong with Mark Lee? He has become a very good play by play guy.
Look, whether you like it or not the Leafs have a loyal following across Canada, and in the US for that matter, and the Leafs Habs rivalry has a long and honarable history. More people watch the 7 PM Eastern game, there was only one early game last night so the CBC put their number one crew on the 7 PM broadcast. And, I think most hockey fans regardless of their team loyalties would admit it was a good game last night.
The Canucks game was pretty good too!
I understand that more people watch the 7pm game, but surely you can understand how frustrating it is to people who aren’t Leaf fans to see that team given top billing every. single. week. when they aren’t anywere close to touching the playoffs! The fact is, as I’ve said many times, if an NBA or NFL team is lousy – pick the teams that you think are the Leaf-equivalents in those leagues – if they are the second-worst team in their league (or “association”), the networks won’t show their games and certainly won’t send their top broadcast crews.
So either Toronto is full of Leaf fans (but not *NHL* fans), or the CBC is cutting off its nose to spite its face. It has to be one or the other. You tell me which.
Ok, then pick your team: if the Lakers were the second-worst team in the NBA somehow, you wouldn’t be seeing them on TV, never mind with the top broadcast crew on ESPN/ABC. If the Giants, Patriots or Steelers (three NFL teams that get good ratings pretty consistently) were the worst teams in the NFL, Jim Nantz would not be sent to call their games.
My point is that there’s no other sports channel out there where big-name team = top time slots and broadcast crew, no matter how lousy they are.
Is it the chicken or the egg, though, here? Are the Leafs on CBC every week (usually) with national exposure because they are the best draw, or are they the best draw because the country has largely been forcefed a diet of Leafs hockey every Saturday night, nationally?
Maybe my beef shouldn’t be with the CBC so much as with Canadian sports fans, who for reasons that are beyond me continue to watch a terrible, terrible hockey team in great numbers.
Again: if the Lakers (I feel the Lakers are a good analogy in terms of brand strength, even though the Lakers are actually good) were terrible, you would not see them on ABC. If the Knicks were half-decent, like if they were a playoff team even in the weaker Eastern Conference, I think you’d see them on ABC. Fine. But they’ve been absolutely terrible for many years now, and consequently, ABC recognizes that people just won’t watch them, so they don’t put them on.
The problem here is either that CBC treats the Leafs like the biggest draw, week-in, week-out, no matter how lousy they are, even though hockey fans across the country would rather watch games that matter, OR that hockey fans in Canada are unsophisticated, and would rather watch a lousy team instead of compelling games that have playoff implications.
I’m not sure who I should blame: the CBC or fans who are apparently Leaf fans first and NHL fans a very distant second and don’t want to watch other, better hockey teams.
Which is it?