Broadcast News: Now With 4 Canadian Series
January 11, 2010 1 Comment
(NOTE: This will show up every Monday on Puck the Media. It’s something we did a couple of times last season. They were fairly popular, and people liked talking about them, so let’s try it on a more permanent basis this year.)
Matchups:
East
#8 Montreal vs. #1 New Jersey
#7 Ottawa vs. #2 Buffalo
#6 NY Rangers vs. #3 Washington
#5 Boston vs. #4 Pittsburgh
West
#8 Los Angeles vs. #1 Chicago
#7 Nashville vs. #2 San Jose
#6 Colorado vs. #3 Calgary
#5 Vancouver vs. #4 Phoenix
Canadian Networks Draft
#1 (CBC): NJ vs. MTL
#2 (CBC): VAN vs. PHX
#3 (TSN): COL vs. CGY
#4 (CBC): OTT vs. BUF
#5 (TSN): BOS vs. PIT
#6-7 (CBC/TSN Split): NSH vs. SJ/LA vs. CHI
#8 (TSN): NYR vs. WSH
CBC will obviously get in on Montreal and Vancouver over Calgary or Ottawa, with TSN likely to jump on Calgary again, unless they want to diversify from last year and show the Senators. The real quagmire here is later in the picks when CBC would be forced to choose between series they can’t have at 10PM for doubleheader purposes all the time. So hopefully, CBC and TSN could compromise like they did in Round 2 of last year’s playoffs and split the Nashville/San Jose series and LA/Chicago series when each is on the west coast (on CBC) and midwest (on TSN).
American Networks
NBC: There’s no reason to believe NBC will go with anything other than Penguins and Capitals, especially with the Rangers and Boston in the picture. Sorry, Blackhawks-Kings, in any other sport, your markets would probably get a primetime network showcase. Not in hockey, where LA and Chi-town are somehow considered smaller than Washington, Boston and Pittsburgh. Maybe you’ll get lucky when the Caps sweep out the Rangers.
VERSUS: VERSUS will likely switch between Nashville/San Jose and Chicago/LA as the west coast series they cover with their own crew, with a CBC simulcast of Vancouver/Phoenix other nights. Rangers/Caps and Pens/Bruins are likely to get the 7PM slot to themselves every night, with Devils/Montreal or Ottawa/Buffalo taking the weekend.
Puck The Media 
Hey Steve, thought I’d leave my thoughts. Obviously the later choices would be dependent on what series have as few conflicts as possible with the main series for each network
1. CBC: NJ-MTL
2. CBC: VAN-PHX
3. TSN: OTT-BUF
4. CBC: COL-CGY
5. TSN: BOS-PIT
6. CBC: NYR-WSH (no way they pass it up after having two west coast series with Canadian teams)
7. TSN: LA-CHI
8. TSN: NSH-SJ
Okay now for explanations. The first two choices are fairly obvious for CBC. I think TSN would take Buffalo-Ottawa third because a 7:00 ET game usually does better than a 9 or 10 ET game. That would leave CBC to be able to have doubleheaders every night with NJ-MTL and NYR-WSH being the 7:00 games, and VAN-PHX and COL-CGY being the 10:00 games. Then TSN could send Cuthbert/Ferraro to OTT-BUF, and Miller-McGuire to BOS-PIT. Those series would be TSN productions and air entirely on TSN, while the two western series would mostly be Versus and local productions, and be split by TSN and TSN2.
As for the US, Versus would focus on NYR-WSH and BOS-PIT early. Those would also be NBC’s series. For the late games they would focus on LA-CHI and COL-CGY, while airing bonus coverage of the other two series.