Your Announcers and Open Thread For Blackhawks-Canadiens

Chicago vs. Montreal, 7:30 PM, VERSUS/TSN/RDS
Play by Play: Joe Beninati
Color: Darren Eliot
Reporter: Bob Harwood 

Why Isn’t Hockey Night in Canada a Part of CBC Sports’ Budget Cuts?

Hey, did you all hear?  This economy isn’t doing to good!  I know!  Even in Canada!  I know!  That Canada.  Anyway, the budget cuts in Canadian government have affected public broadcaster CBC, and particularly the sports department.  Chris Zelkovich has more in his terrific new “Sports Media Watch” blog:

Though sports produces a lot of CBC’s revenue, it didn’t escape today’s cuts aimed at overcoming the corporation’s $171 million shortfall.

Gone is the radio show The Inside Track, a CBC staple for decades. At this point, the CBC is saying only that the following sports will face reductions or cutbacks in coverage of alpine skiing, world aquatics, track and field, international figure skating and CONCACAF soccer. The depth of those cuts will be made clearer soon.

As for personnel, all the CBC is saying at this point is that 313 jobs will be cut in sports, entertainment, current affairs and sales.

That’s a shame for all of those sports, which dearly need coverage and exposure of some kind to keep awareness up for the events to thrive.  But what we noticed, and Zelkovich did too, is that hockey is pretty much unscathed.  Your telling me that Don Cherry’s wardrobe couldn’t pay to televise a season’s worth of figure skating action?

Anyway, Zelkovich is a real media member at the Toronto Star, so he got to ask CBC Sports President Scott Moore about it:

On the first point, CBC Sports boss Scott Moore says the fat has already been cut at HNIC through travel reductions and behind-the-scenes stuff. In fact, he says HNIC came in under budget after trimming.

But what about all those regional telecasts on Saturday nights? Surely, they don’t help the bottom line considering how much they add to costs.

Well, Moore says, in fact they do add to the bottom line. “The regional broadcasts have added from 100,000 to 300,000 viewers a night,” he says. “Without the extra Montreal Canadiens games, we would have less revenue because of lower ratings.”

Fair enough.  Maybe Canadian readers can help tell me if we should be smelling funny business here, but his explanations make sense to me.  Good news for fans of Hockey Night in Canada, we suppose.

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Your Mid-Day YouTube Compulsory: Teemu Selanne Cybers with His Cars

Dear Darren Eliot…

Dear Darren Eliot,

Has someone at the NHL erased your brain of Sean Avery’s tenure with the Stars.  You mentioned on many occasions during last night’s VERSUS telecast of the Devils-Rangers game that this was the first time Brodeur and the Devils had faced Avery since last year’s playoff season.  The Devils played the Stars early in the season, and beat them 5-0.  Avery did play, though he didn’t really participate.  You should really do a little more research for something that’s the leading headline of your telecast.  Unless you’re really in the business of hyping a rivalry that everyone’s tired of at this point.

Otherwise, we’re fans, shoot us an E-mail.  Sucks about Cornell.

Love,

Puck the Media

Announcers and Open Thread For Tonight’s Doubleheader (!)

New Jersey vs. NY Rangers, 7PM, VERSUS
Play by Play: Mike Emrick
Color: Darren Eliot
Reporter: Bob Harwood 

Dallas vs. Phoenix, 10PM, VERSUS
Play by Play: Dave Strader
Color: Dary Reaugh
Reporter: Lindsay Soto (!) 

Help Us Get Jack Edwards, Please

One more time around with that, we promise.  But here’s the deal.  We know you love Jack or love to hate Jack.  We know you’d love to see him interviewed on this very site.  But it’s impossible to E-mail him, since there’s no address at NESN.com, or his HD production company website, or a press contact for NESN on the website.

So, we ask you, violent reader: Can you figure out a way for us to interview Jack Edwards?  If you help us get in touch with you, the first two questions of the interview are yours!  Please help us with an E-mail at SMLepore@comcast.net or leave one in the comment section.

Please help us.  We’ll provide updates on The Quest for Jack when we can.

Random Thoughts From the NCAA Tournament, and Frozen Four Schedule

1. Who are these sources John Buccigross is referring to?  During he and Barry Melrose’s telecast of the Northeast Regional, he kept saying “A source tells me…” in reference to various unsigned college players.  What is this, a HockeyBuzz Twitter feed?  Otherwise, we guess Bucci and Barry were okay.  We tend to mistrust anyone who says “Goal!” instead of “Score!”, but whatever, Bucci digs the sport.  We dig that.

2. Did anyone else see that 7OT lacrosse game that cut into the first period or so of North Dakota-UNH?  Wasn’t that nuts?

3. The NCAA has to invest in some more camera angles.  During the Air Force-Vermont game, which was in HD even, they could not determine that an OT-winning goal from Vermont was conclusively in for more than 20 minutes.  Can we get a low angle side shot of the net, please?

4. Overall, all four broadcast teams were fairly decent bringing the game to you, and ESPN’s increased coverage had a lot of our friends spending some quality couch time watching College Hockey.

5. Seriously?  Bemidji St.?

That being said, what were your opinions of the Frozen Four broadcasts?  After the jump is the Frozen Four schedule and announcers.

Your Mid-Day YouTube Compulsory: Yeah, Here it is Again

NHL Advertising Fail

50 points if you can tell us what’s wrong with this photo, which the NHL is using to advise fans to watch Devils-Rangers tonight at 7PM on VERSUS.

We’ll Use This Footage in The Murder Trial of Jack Edwards Someday

You’re going to see this a couple times today.  This is Jack Edwards’ call during the Bruins-Flyers game on NESN Sunday.  It is simply the craziest thing we have ever heard in our lives.  It’s pretty unprofessional, whether or not it’s him being a homer.  But it’s still one of the most awesome soundbites of the 2008-09 NHL season.  Oh, Jack Edwards, we only have 7 games and two playoff rounds left of you.  The Summer’s going to be extra long.

Just to remind any with a fuzzy memory, Jack is laughing maniacally because there was no penalty called on the Randy Jones hit that caused Patrice Bergeron to sit out with a concussion a while back.  But really, did knowing the history behind it affect you at all?