I was also very impressed by the NHL Network’s presence in Buffalo in the leadup to, and after-event coverage of, the Winter Classic. When the NHL hosts a special event, its network seems to rise to the occasion.

But covering hockey in the dead of winter ought to be like breathing for the rest of us for this network.

I’m not an XM subscriber, but I’m familiar enough with the characteristics of XM 204 to know that puckheads who have it are grateful for it. The league has something good going with XM, and in-season, when the NHL Network broadcasts all two hours of ‘NHL Live’ each day, that’s quality programming. Repeating it in the early evening is wise as well, as most fans aren’t home at 10:00 a.m. to view it. The network in the offseason suffers to some extent by losing such a program, which offers engaging in-studio interactions with serious league insiders like E.J. Hradek and their thoughtful take on league developments, delivered informally and always with enthusiasm. That’s a winner of a TV formula, and the network needs to find some manner of replacement for it in the offseason.

It seems to me that there needs to be a recognition by the network that its patrons in summer are, on some level, seeking an escape from summer heat, from baseball — from NASCAR most particularly. It’s then when we most need images and associations of our frozen game. So why not offer up a re-broadcast of the very first league-sponsored outdoor game, the Heritage Classic, when frosty Edmonton froze up the event’s Zambonis? Some NHL teams are now annually holding one or more practice sessions outdoors (as the Caps do at Chevy Chase Country Club). Footage from those affairs would be especially novel to view in the dog days of summer.

There are also compelling stories emerging from every NHL summer Development Camp. The league’s network should be broadcasting press conferences and prospect interviews and even snippets of scrimmages. When George McPhee beamed in front of cameras at Kettler Capitals last week about the arrival of the Frozen Four in Washington next spring, that was an occasion for all of hockey to celebrate. This is not a league or a sport that goes dark in the dead of summer (influencing, incidentally, the genesis of OnFrozenBlog) — and its TV channel ought to reflect that.

I’ve yet to see ‘Slapshot’ air on the network. May I ask why? Schedule that for one summer Saturday night, and promote it with an appearance by the principal actors offering commentary in interludes, and see if more than 17 folks tune in (the Canadian Parliament will go out of session).

This is a league that is chronicled, on line, by some of the most creative and talented commentators in all of sports. Why wouldn’t the league open up a few hours of its offseason each week on the NHL Network to the wit and wisdom of its bloggers? “My NHL” was advertised by the league just a couple of seasons ago. Make it so on the network in summer, and eventually year round. After all, we’ve given traditional media a fair century at the endeavor, to underwhelming reviews.

The NHL was bold and beautiful with its idea of a Winter Classic; similarly, it needs to be bold and beautiful with its around-the-clock television broadcast branding. Especially during Redskins’ training camp.

Filed in Blogs, Don Cherry, Hockey, Hockey Movies, Internet, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, NHL Network, National Hockey League, Stanley Cup Playoffs, The Winter Classic, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (13)

Bettman’s State of the Hockey Union

By The OFB Team
Sunday, May 25, 2008

As is tradition, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman addressed the media late yesterday afternoon in  the lead-up to Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. The commissioner has used this forum in the past to offer a quasi state of the game assessment, and yesterday was no different. James Mirtle has the entire transcript of the session up on his blog, but we thought we’d highlight some standout aspects and quote in full eyebrow-raising realms that are staple thinking of this commissioner.

The commish, from his vantage, identified highlights of the 2007-08 season:

  • The Kings and Ducks opening the regular season in Europe. (To yawns, from our vatange.)
  • The Winter Classic, between the Pens and Sabres, from Buffalo. Without committing to a followup game outdoors yesterday, he did say that the league will make a decision “shortly” on Winter Classic II “in terms of venue and the teams involved.” (He, far moreso than we, would like to see a Pens-Flyers matchup outdoors, “in Happy Valley,” and hinted that such a matchup is on the short list of likelys.) 
  • The U.S. debut of the NHL Network.
  • The opening of the NHL Store in New York City, “powered by Reebok,” he quipped. (No mention of Reebok’s powering a high-tailed race away from its uniform system, by all 30 teams, and a return to the good old fabric of the past.
  • 21 million in attendance for the past regular season for the first time ever. Revenues exceeded $2.5 billion — also a first.

We particularly enjoyed this opening to the Q&A portion of the session:

Q. At this point in time, often times television ratings come up in this session. I understand they’re positive this year. But how does the League measure kind of the unprecedented access that hockey fans have across the world through all the new technology?

COMMISSIONER GARY BETTMAN: That’s an interesting and intriguing question. Obviously with respect to ratings we look for continued growth in traditional media. I think all sports, particularly us, tend to get measured too much solely by that metric and not the other things, including access to new media . . . What it means is our fans, and probably the fans of all sports, are seeking to get content of what they want on their own terms. And, therefore, we need to make sure that there’s access to our game the way our fans want it when they want it, how they want it.

On the league’s newly instituted intolerance for flying octopi:

COMMISSIONER BETTMAN: . . .The issue is the swinging of it. And Colin Campbell has had numerous conversations. The problem is the ice. I don’t know what the technical name is for stuff that comes off an octopus. I assume it’s some sort of gunk. When it sticks on the ice it’s a problem, and when it gets on things - it’s actually in one game got on a goaltender as it was being swung. They were going out the Zamboni entrance. It’s really more about making sure that no player hits something on the ice and blows out his knee.

[OFB note: octopi gunk impairing ice quality is an issue for the league, but just regular old rotten ice -- like for a Game 7 of the playoff series -- isn't.]

It’s about the conditions that we’re playing under. So I have no illusions. The octupi will fly, but they just can’t be swung because we’ve got to limit the gunk. Not a very artful way of describing it, but I think you get the point.”

Q. I just noticed that the League kind of missed a chance to end this, by this, I mean the playoffs, they had a shot at ending it before June. And I just wondered if there was any effort being made to squeeze the playoff schedule a bit so it’s a little less interminable.

COMMISSIONER GARY BETTMAN: I don’t think it’s interminable. And I’m sorry if you do. I like being here. I like going to games. And I feel a void in my life when the season is over. And I don’t even get to go on vacation.

Q. You need a hobby.

COMMISSIONER GARY BETTMAN: That may be. Squeezing it is an issue. It is the most grueling march to the championship of any sport. We’re very mindful of the wear and tear on our players.

[OFB note: For a specific instance illustrative of the league's concern with wear and tear on its players, look back on Anaheim's opening seven days of the 2007-08 regular season, with five games contested all on the road, two in the United Kingdom and three in fast succession back in North America.] 

Filed in Gary Bettman, Hockey, Hockey Rinks, Ice, National Hockey League, Stanley Cup Playoffs, The Winter Classic, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (3)

Searching for the Next Great Outdoor Game

By pucksandbooks
Thursday, May 15, 2008

Yankee Stadium may be out as the site for an outdoor NHL game next New Year’s Day, according to today’s USA Today. Both New York baseball teams are building new stadiums, and there’s an enormous amount of construction associated with those sites as well as others in the respective burroughs of Queens and the Bronx.

An alternative site? Potentially Beaver Stadium on the campus of Penn State.

“Bettman said he received a letter from Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell asking the league to look into playing a Penguins-Philadelphia Flyers game at Penn State’s football stadium. An announcement could come by early next month, Bettman said.”

If you’ve been to State College, you know it’s a level or seven down from the media market of the Big Apple. It’s also (basically) without an airport. Should that be the followup to this past New Year’s Day snowy stunner in Buffalo, convenient to both Toronto and New York media?

And if the league needs to wait a month before determining the site of this new and highly appealing event on hockey’s calendar, why not wait off another week and add it to the league’s Entry Draft weekend of fun, and give that event some more pizzaz?

The dismantling of Yankee Stadium should begin in February or March. The wrecking ball bludgeons Shea not long after the Mets’ final game this season. Losing out on Yankee would be particularly disappointing for the NHL, as the event necessarily would garner extraordinary interest again in the media capital of the world and as Yankee’s final significant event, joining that venue’s legion of memorable dates (Muhammed Ali fights; the Beatles; Notre Dame-Army football).

If need be, how about this instead: the Hawks and Wings on New Years from a recently renovated Soldier Field?

Filed in Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Hockey Rinks, Hockey Weather, Media, National Hockey League, Old Time Hockey, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, The Winter Classic, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (15)

NFL Gurus Loved the Winter Classic

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Monday, January 7, 2008

Thought I’d share a couple blurbs with you as praise for the NHL’s Winter Classic continues to ripple through the sports pages. Monday Morning QB Peter King of SI.com had good things to say about it, after explaining that he couldn’t care less about this year’s less-than-compelling bowl games:

NHL Winter Classic 2008I did, however, care about the New Year’s Day hockey game in Buffalo. Fantastic visuals, fun event, tremendous game capped by the best player in hockey scoring the winning goal in the last round of a shootout, with 71,000 riveted fans in the stadium. This was the best new sports-event idea I’ve seen in years, and I don’t say that because I draw a paycheck from NBC.

Would love Canadiens-Bruins at Fenway next year. Or Canadiens-Maple Leafs somewhere up north. Or the Flyers-Penguins at Heinz Field or the Linc. Or the Wings-Penguins at Comerica. Or — what about this one — the Stanley Cup champ against Sidney Crosby and the Penguins, either in Pittsburgh or in the biggest outdoor stadium in Canada? Whatever, NBC’s got to keep this going.

Also see ESPN’s David Fleming, in his rant about the “Vote of Confidence” being a death knell for NFL coaches:

While the NHL works hard to think up new ways to expand and improve its game — like the spectacular outdoor match in Buffalo on New Year’s Day — the NFL has been busy inventing more and more twisted ways for the game’s leaders to go back on their word.

Filed in Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins, Sidney Crosby, The Winter Classic, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (2)

So Hockey Got Asked Out on a Date This Week

By pucksandbooks
Friday, January 4, 2008

Morning Cup-A-JoeSomething momentous and stupendous happened to hockey on Tuesday. By late Wednesday afternoon I was aware of an unusual mainstream media preoccupation forming a phenomenon: they were, rather uniformly, rather nationally, saying nice things about our sport. Really nice things.

Then came Wednesday’s 5:00 hour on ESPN.

I was New-Years-resolution fitnessing at a big health club then, flat screen TVs hanging overhead, the pearls of wisdom from the talking heads captioned for the sweating. At the top of hour there there’s some hip and chic and therefore unendurable split-screen of sports columnists blathering for 30 minutes. A guy named Woody from Denver, Jay from Chicago, somebody else I didn’t know, and some smarmy host red-meating the proceedings. I figured they’d quick-hit hockey ’cause of Tuesday’s novelty and move on to the important stuff, like what Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson will do together during the Cowboys’ bye week.

Instead, everyone took turns praising not just the Winter Classic but the fundamental appeals of hockey, which, they claimed, were showcased in Buffalo on Tuesday. And they couldn’t stop talking about it. They interrupted one another with accolades. They debated when and where the next outdoor game should take place. Soldier Field was mentioned, where the “revitalized Chicago Blackhawks” would skate perhaps against another Original Six club. One fella admitted that he couldn’t stick with a single college bowl game Tuesday afternoon (imagine shunning all those three- and four-loss dynamos!) because he kept getting drawn back to the Lakeside fun in a winter wonderland.

Understand that in the wallets of these Worldwide Leader in Sports personalties are laminated cards that read, “If I even know that hockey exists, I seriously hate it.”

In the middle of the hour Kornheiser and Wilbon followed, on PTI. These two of course last did coverage favors for our sport pre-expansion. But they, too, joined in the broadcast swooning over our sport. It was no gag, either. Gym exercisers to my right and left seemed to be following the dialogue like I was, but only I kept falling off equipment pedals.

At times the MoJo that moves the media in a hungry pack around a new food source is vague and intangible. It formed and fomented around hockey late Tuesday and throughout Wednesday. I don’t think as recently as 12:45 p.m. Tuesday anyone even in the NHL’s Communications or Marketing offices could have imagined the media’s love-at-first-sight sweet nothings for our game soon to ensue.

Early Thursday I Googled “Winter Classic” as a subject search, and from little more than one full page of listings spotted these headlines:

Winter Classic is a step in the right direction

Winter Classic: Outdoor Game Scores

The Perfect Snowstorm: The Winter Classic Scores

NBC Shoots, Scores with NHL Winter Classic Ratings

Winter Classic a Huge Success

NHL Winter Classic proves league can get it right (” . . . nothing short of an overwhelming success . . . “)

In truth, hockey got lucky Tuesday, on at least two fronts. The first was a slate of yawner college pigskin bowl games, the byproduct of BCS madness rendering New Years Day — once the sport’s Christmas morning — now needless, the nutritional equivalent of television Twinkies. The second front, obviously, was the weather one: raucus and Rockwellian. The Ralph on Tuesday had everything but the Budweiser Clydesdales.

Best of all, few among the millions who watched likely thought, “Ah-hah, the spoiled millionaires are discomforted for a few hours.” No, millions saw highly skilled, smiling skaters persevering through rhythm-robbing interruptions and a rapidly deteriorating playing surface, and 71,000 supporters screaming through sideways snow and sleet and gashing Great Lake winds.

I became aware that hockey had created a crush, that in this week it was being asked out on a date by the four-sport letterman who never noticed us in class; a date perhaps only for this Saturday night, but a date nonetheless.

Here’s a loser-has-to-get-a-Mike-Green-haircut wager I direct at those who think Tuesday was a lone flicker of lucky lust directed at the league: there’s a new Yankee Stadium today under construction, and it won’t be open 5 years before the Rangers skate a regular season game in it.

Why would the Yankees and BigMedia care about us again?

Because in our natural state we’re very pretty.

Filed in Buffalo Sabres, ESPN, Gary Bettman, Media, Michael Wilbon, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Old Time Hockey, Pittsburgh Penguins, Pond Hockey, TV, The Winter Classic, Tony Kornheiser, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (4)