With apologies to Real Time with Bill Maher, here are some NHL inspired “new rules” that I have developed. For reference sake, I wrote (parts of) this while lamenting CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada broadcasting decisions, and instead resorted to watching championship curling.
New rule to CBC: If a player, any player, is about to equal or tie an NHL career milestone, that game must be broadcast to as many people as possible. For the majority of Canadians to have missed out on seeing Martin Brodeur play in his hometown (Montreal) on Hockey Night in Canada while one win shy of tying the all-time record for victories by a goalie, simply was a travesty of a broadcasting decision.
New rule to CBC (2): Along the lines of the first new rule, if in the game being shown to the majority of Canadians has the visiting team’s fans (Calgary) out-number and are significantly louder than the fans of the home team (Toronto), that’s a game that should not be broadcast to anyone outside those two cities. Or it should be made exclusively available on the new specialty CBC channel, Masochist TV.
New rule to TSN: Stop showing us the standings in the “race” for season long futility/Tavares. There’s a reason no one goes to watch teams that are at the bottom of the standings. It’s because they are bad. If the home town fans aren’t interested in following that team, use that as a pretty good gauge of the interest level of the rest of the country.
New rule to TSN (2): When the winner of the aforementioned “race” is actually determined by a random drawing, really, truly, pretty please, stop showing us the standings.
New rule to the NHL: Under no circumstances can a potential Stanley Cup winning game not be broadcast on network television in the United States. The decision to have games three and four of the Stanley Cup Finals on Versus instead of on NBC is simply mind boggling in its stupidity.
New rule to the NHL (2): Stop trying to out-think yourselves. You have enough trouble with basic thinking. The idea to put games one and two of the Stanley Cup Finals on NBC instead of Versus is a decent one, with the goal being to build up an audience. Unfortunately, when the majority of the audience that you are trying to gather does not get the channel that is broadcasting games three and four, your good idea dissolves into nothingness.
New rule to the NHL (3): Kansas City? Really, NHL? Really?
For Illegal Curve, I am Drew Mindell. Please note that you can now get more Cold Hard Rants all week long, as I am now Twittering. User name is ColdHardRanter.
Feel free to comment on my “new rules” or add your own below, in the comments section.
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