Announcers and Open Thread For Tonight’s Rangers-Blues Game on VERSUS

Every Monday & Tuesday night, VERSUS gives you a chance to snark away at the jokesters at VERSUS with this open post/thread.  Feel free to post opinions on the game, humorous anecdotes, and anything just plain stupid the announcers might happen to say.  Enjoy.

New York Rangers vs. St. Louis Blues, 7PM
Play by Play: Joe Beninati
Color: Eddie Olczyk
Reporter: Bob Harwood 

Pierre McGuire to Announce His Canadian Olympic Team Tonight

From TSN.ca:

TSN Hockey Analyst Pierre McGuire will announce his picks for the 2010 Canadian Olympic men’s Hockey Team tonight. He will answer selected viewer questions about the team during the first intermission of the Senators/Predators game on TSN.

We may rag on Pierre from time to time, but ask anyone around the league, the man knows what he is talking about.  Check out Sens/Preds if you’re in Canada tonight.

NBC’s Olympic Site Running, Your Official Timeslot Schedule for the Olympic Hockey Tournamnets

With Norway, Latvia and Germany all qualifying, the Olympic tournament for next February is completely set.  NBC’s Olympic site is up and running, and it has some features on players and highlights of the ’06 Sweden/Finland classic Gold Medal game.  It also has the dates and times that competition will be taking place.  We’ll do our best to match it up with the schedules we posted earlier this year.  It’s gonna be 11 hours straight of hockey some days, so get ready to salivate!

Your Mid-Day YouTube Compulsory: This is Probably What You’re Missing When You Don’t Understand Our Love For Chico Resch

It’s a Weak West Coast Presence That Hurts Hockey, Not a Weak Southern One

NHL games on NBC this season will feature teams from the following states:

• Michigan
• Illinois
• New York
• Pennsylvania
• Massachusets
• Minnesota
• New Jersey
• Washington D.C

A real cross-section of America, eh folks?  Now I know it’s apples/oranges, but here are the states that will be featured in ABC’s NBA coverage this season:

• Texas
• Massachusets
• California
• Ohio
• Michigan
• Arizona
• Louisiana

Okay, so maybe that didn’t prove our point as well as we thought it would upon the initial conception of the idea.  The point is, the NBA is able to draw upon a broad base of viewers from coast-to-coast.  Whereas, the NHL can only draw from pockets of the northeast.  The NHL needs a tentpole team out west.  

NHL On NBC, Week 3: Mike and Pierre Hand Out Valentines, We Go to Sharks-Devils Game Like the Rest of You Wanted To

We watched about half a period, plus the first intermission of NBC’s broadcast of the Rangers-Flyers disaster from Madison Square Garden.  Luckily for us, it was with the sound turned off.  See, we were in Newark, NJ at the Brick City Bar & Grill, a lovely, Devils-friendly bar – wouldn’t you know it – right across the street from the Prudential Center’s box office.  We love seeing entire restaurants filled with Devils fans rooting against the Rangers.

Jealous much?  We went to the Devils-Sharks game and pretty much skipped out on the New York-Philadelphia “high profile matchup”.  What a shame.  We missed a 5-2 rout for the Flyers.  We instead got to see two of the best teams in the league duke it out to a 6-5 final, in favor of New Jersey.  That’s the point we’re trying to make here, that NBC would’ve done the league a favor airing Devils-Sharks.