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Loading ...Who is pissed off about the network TV schedule for this NHL season? It can’t be just me.
I fail to see that it’s any different than Bristol’s old TV schedule–the same five fucking teams, shown over and over and over again. The DEFENDING STANLEY CUP CHAMPION TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING slighted because they 1) had the bollocks to beat the Comcast’s favorite team in the Eastern Conference finals and 2) are playing the Hurricanes. Small-market teams given short shrift again because they’re not “marketable” (i.e. they’re not one of the five that were Favored of Bristol and now Favored (but not as much as the Flyers) of Comcast).
Gee, the more things change…..
Screw you, Comcast and OLN. Screw you for pandering to the lowest common denominator and being lazy. Screw you for falling back on what’s easy rather than actually putting in some work to market some of the smaller-market teams that have players that are exciting to watch. I couldn’t give two shits about Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic, Jaromir Jagr, Sidney frickin’ Crosby, or Brendan fucking Shanahan–I’d rather watch Eric Staal, Rostislav Klesla, Marian Gaborik, Jarome Iginla, and (if Don Waddell gets off his ass and signs him) Ilya Kovalchuk. Screw you, Comcast AND NBC AND the NHL, for showing such blatant favoritism. If you’ve got a thirty team goddamn league, then give all damn thirty teams equal frickin’ time. The only reason the Hurricanes and the Predators and the Smoking Jackets and the Kings and the Ducks and the Stars and the Lightning and the Flames and the Sens and the Oilers and the rest of the teams that are buggered by this schedule don’t get any ratings IS BECAUSE YOU IDJITS DON’T BLOODY SHOW THEM! And when they DO get shown, the bias of the announcers toward whatever “marquee” team they’re playing is so disgusting that I can’t even watch more than half an hour of it.
I’m not willing to settle for just having the NHL on TV–to hell with that, and to hell with the people telling me to just suck it up and be happy with what I’ve got because it’s better than nothing. I don’t have that time for the “we’ll take what we can get and be happy about it” mentality.
I’d rather have nothing at all, if the alternative is more of the same old fellating of the same old five or six teams.
Well…I *would* agree with you, but I have to admit that I am in the party that says whatever it takes to get that eventual NHL Network. The very day I heard that Comcast landed the NHL, I resigned myself to the fact that no matter how many teams they actually give “respect” to, it will always be the Flyers lovefest, thanks greatly to their being owned by Comcast. I’m a little surprised that it will not also be a Capitals lovefest, considering how the Comcast Sports channel covers Washington/Baltimore sports.
Normally, I would be as POed as you are, but if what I have heard about Comcast’s CEO being as big a hockey fan as they come AND wanting to get the NHL in the spotlight is true, I say whatever it takes.
And even if we ever get that NHL Network, don’t expect the coverage to get any better…whenever I pass by the NFL Network, there always seems to be something about the Cowboys, Packers, or Patriots on there. NBA TV? Lakers (which is practically the only team I won’t complain about on this list because, as I once told you, my brother likes’em), Bulls, and Celtics. And if the MLB had its own network/channel? I can guaran-damn-tee you that it would be nothing but a Yankees/Red Sox orgy twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
So, team-biasness may seem bad in the NHL, but most, if not all major sports are suffering from it too.
See, I could buy that argument if the Lightning were getting umpty-ump games per season as defending Champs–but they’re not. It’s the same five teams getting most of the games, even though they ALL got showed up in the playoffs last season, and teams that are up and coming in the US and the Canadian teams (one of which has been a perennial playoff contender, even if they wind up choking at the hands of the Maple Leafs) are getting short shrift because they’re not considered “marketable”. If they’re not marketable in the eyes of the NHL, then why do they exist at all?
Variety is the spice of life and will wind up being the lifeblood of the NHL. To compare it to the NBA or MLB or the NFL (all of which are firmly entrenched here in the States) is kinda silly IMO, because the NHL is trying to survive and needs to market every last one of their teams rather than just a select handful with the biggest number of bandwagoners or (in the case of the PFlyers) the favor of Comcast.
I think this could have been done better, and honestly? Nothing will change my mind on that.
You have it so right! I live five hours from Nashville so I don’t make the trip much but if they were on TV a bit more I would probably be moved to visit more. It’s hard to get excited enough to go through the trouble and expense by reading stories on the web site. So, it’s not just about TV ratings; it’s about ticket sales and marketing.
Exactly, Bryant.
A lot of people don’t understand that this whole thing is a self-perpetuating cycle. The teams that get the ratings get them because they are shown over and over and over again–with no alternatives, the average viewer will just default to what’s there and think that everything else isn’t worth watching. And I’m sorry, but I find a Nashville-Columbus or Calgary-Edmonton matchup to be a LOT more exciting than Detroit-Colorado v.umpty-ump–and I suspect that any other hockey fan with half a lick of sense would, too.