The HD Corner – Exhibition Opening Night Thoughts

My first night of hockey watching for the 07-08 season has come to end. NHL Centre Ice subscribers were treated to two games: Sens – Flyers via the local Ottawa Rogers channel, and Leafs-Oilers on Leafs TV (blacked out in the Oilers and Flames regions). Lucky for me I found a diamond in the rough with a Habs-Pens game on RDS. GT’s! Remember what I said about how I feel sorry for the folks that settle on watching RDS Habs games during the season, as an alternative to the usual Leafs Saturday night crap that’s shown? Well I take that back. Not only is the feed usually excellent quality, even in standard definition, but all these French announcers are actually the best in the biz. Who knew? Simply put, I don’t care for any of the pointless analysis that these retired/fat/senile ex-NHLers think provides so much insight to the game. Sure, Greg Millen does provide the odd interesting tid-bit of info sometimes, but usually he’s just babbling on about details we’ve heard a million times like Ray Emery’s Mike Tyson Helmet, or the fact that Dustin Penner got cut from his Jr. Team. Big deal. Like do I really need to know that Mervin Cheechoo is in town watching his son play for game 31 of the regular season? When I’m watching on RDS, all I can understand is something to the extent of “Koivu…..Ryder….avec la rondelle….le tir….et le but!”. And really that’s all I care about. Tell me who’s got the puck, who’s scored, who’s on the ice, but please don’t waste my time mentioning how Guillaume Latendresse is a fan favourite because he is from Quebec. I’m trying to watch a hockey game here, not an episode of Access Hollywood.

Moving on, other rumblings in the media world include both CBC and NBC covering the outdoor Pens-Sabres game on New Year’s Day. Finally something to watch other than the Cotton Bowl. There is a god! Features apparently this year include blimp shots of the stadium a la NFL football. Can’t wait…so as long as Joe Buck doesn’t show up to give us his opinion on Eli Manning’s bum shoulder.

On that note…time to see Martine Gaillard in action on SportsnetConnected. I’m out.

For Illegal Curve, I’m Neil Rockman.