Thursday, May 21, 2009

So there

ESPN's Sheldon Burnside has a nice little post about the NHL playoff schedule.

You remember the NHL? No? Oh, well, there was a playoff game on Tuesday. There's another tonight, but in the other conference. Don't worry, we'll get there eventually.

I posted a long reply ...

Back in the day (early to mid '90s), games were every other night until the series was over, and it was great. You knew when each game of the series was, good series got to keep the momentum going, and the best series seemed to end too soon.

Now, particularly during the conference and Stanley Cup finals, it's easy to forget that hockey is still going on, especially when it's on a third-tier network (at best).

The NHL's excuse about breaks is ridiculous ... if anything, spacing out games makes it even more likely you'll wait forever for the next series. If the Wings sweep the Hawks and the Pens-Canes series goes 7, Detroit will be waiting 9 days just for the series to end, never mind for the Finals to begin! Game 4 of the East is 2 days after Game 4 in the West.

A good commissioner would regain control of the schedule and tell the minor networks how it's going to be. Vs doesn't have that much that it needs to show, and the ratings for NHL playoff games are bad anyway ... of course on a real network like ESPN, there would be options other than delaying by days (moving a game to ESPN2, News, Classic, whatever).

Of course this one is too concerned with not letting THAT MAN have an NHL franchise to care. Hey, it's the same guy who thought fans would come streaming back after the lockout. Why expect anything better from him?

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