I was at the game, so this didn’t effect me. I hear that it also didn’t effect people in the Buffalo area, which would have caused an even bigger mess. But NBC does have a mess on their hands none-the-less.

Yesterday’s Sabres/Senators game started at 2 PM EDT on NBC. It was to be on until 5 and then NBC’s coverage of The Preakness was to be on from 5-7. But the game went into Overtime. So what did NBC do? Did they stick with the game for a little bit? After all, the race was not set to go off until 6:15 and 75 minutes would have given the viewers at least one period of OT - maybe two if there were no TV timeouts. Nope. Not NBC. They went to the pre-race show right at 5.

The game ended at 5:15 about 1/2 way thru the 1st OT period. Based on that, even if NBC decided to stick with the game for 1 OT, they would have been able to air their precious horsey race pre-show for 45 minutes. Hell, anyone that’s familiar with hockey would be able to tell you that they’d be able to air at least one OT period and have plenty of time to get to the race.

NBC Sports is pathetic, especially in their coverage of hockey:
- pre-game & post-game shows are online and not on TV
- they only air 9 regular season games each year
- they do not air playoff games when their’s golf on in the afternoon or if the games are in prime time
and now you can add to the list:
- they leave a game that’s going to overtime for the pre-show of a horse race.

THE PRE-SHOW! Not the actual race, but the PRE-SHOW!

I’ll be watching the Stanley Cup finals on CBC in HD via my over-the-air antenna, since it’s obvious that NBC doesn’t care if they show hockey or not.

sources:
palmbeachpost.com
si.com

The NHL Conference Finals will start this weekend, but you won’t see any of the action on NBC. Why? Well, it seems that NBC cares more about Golf, Law & Order, and Shrek.

Saturday is Game 2 of the Sabres/Senators series. NBC will be showing Golf from 2:00-7:00, then Dateline (which is pretty much on every day now) & 2 of the many Law & Order spin-offs.

Sunday is Game 2 of the Ducks/Red Wings series. NBC will be again showing Golf from 2:00-7:00 and 2001’s Shrek at 8:00 (who hasn’t seen this 6 year old movie?)

Why does the NHL put up with this? They let NBC push them around when it’s convenient for them. NBC made the NHL completely screw up the Senators/Penguins Round 1 series by moving Game 2 in Ottawa from Friday to Saturday afternoon, even though Game 3 was Sunday night in Pittsburgh. Why? Two words: Sidney Crosby. I bet if Pittsburgh was still in the playoffs, they’d be showing that game on Saturday or Sunday.

NBC has also left themselves open to potentially having no games to air on May 19th & 20th. Now, I don’t think that either of the series will be a 4-0 sweep, but if they are - or even if one of them is - that would leave the National TV audience with one or zero hockey games for THREE weeks (there’s no games scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend)

I don’t write this as a Sabres fan, I write it as a fan of hockey. I want hockey to succeed on a National level, and for that to happen, NBC has to step up & do what they can to make that happen.

I was just looking at NBC’s NHL Playoffs schedule and something struck me as odd…there’s no games scheduled for May 12th or 13. I though that was very strange, since the Conference Finals will be starting that weekend.

Now what major event could make NBC forget that they have the national NHL TV contract once again? Oh yeah! The ever popular Par 3 Water Hole.

Think about this for a second: all of the 9 games that NBC was generous enough to broadcast for us during the NHL regular season had a 12:30 PM starting time. This horrendous time was not something the NHL wanted - NBC wanted it so that they could show 3-4 hours of golf after. So why not schedule Game 1 or 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Saturday at 12:30? It’ll be on the East coast (Buffalo or New Jersey will be the home team), it’ll be over by 3 or so & then NBC can let everyone watch professional golfers hit balls into the water until 7 PM.

OR - and here’s a really whacky idea: How about a 7 or 8 PM game? Seems to work really well for Canada.

Of course I’ll be sending a version of this post to NBC & the NHL & anyone else I can find an email address for & I encourage you to do the same.

The 2nd round of the 2007 NHL Playoffs kicks off tonight & I’m not sure if I’m upset or happy with the schedule.

On Sunday, NBC said that Game 2 of the Sabres/Rangers series was going to be on Saturday or Sunday, which I thought was great because it’d be a home game for the Sabres & Buffalo can always use a little bit of National exposure. But then they decided that the 1st 2 Sabres games would be on Versus, with Game 3 on Sunday at MSG in NY. The Saturday game on NBC is in Detroit.

Now, even though the NBC website says that the games for May 5th & 6th are “To Be Determined”, you can see on the Yahoo NHL page that Saturday the 5th is again in Detroit & Sunday the 6th is again in New York.

In order for the NHL to do this, they had to adjust their normal “on-off-on” scheduling for both of these series. The only good thing is that they did it without causing either series of play back-to-back games.

So while I wish that the NHL & NBC would come to buffalo, I’m happy that I’ll get to watch the away games on NBC in High Def

I am really starting to hate NBC.

In the Jury out on Sabres, NBC deal column by Alan Pergament in Saturday’s edition of The Buffalo News, it was mentioned that once again, NBC Sports will only be airing 9 regular season games for the 2007-08 NHL season. 6-1/2 months of games & the one major network that broadcasts the NHL will be showing us less than 1% of the games.

They did say that they would be adopting a flex schedule (like they have with the NFL) and I agree that that is a step in the right direction. It also means that the Buffalo area will be seeing less of the Rangers & Islanders, because based on the 9 “regional” games I saw this year, NBC thinks that New York City is near Buffalo & that the NY teams are in our division.

NBC will be airing 2 games a week during the playoffs and they will be airing games 3 thru 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, which is kinda big for them seeing as I can’t remember the last time I saw an NHL game on NBC during the week. I also noticed on the NBC Sports website that they will be moving their 30 minute pre-game show from the internet to the television for their 1st playoff broadcast April 14th. I really hope that the local stations don’t loose too much money by airing the pre-game show instead of an Infomercial.

Now some of you will say that Versus is a national channel, and I agree. But it’s not NBC. It’s not even close to ESPN. And, as you know, I can’t find it in High Def. They have the main TV contract for the NHL, but they only air 2 games a week - and those are on Monday’s & Tuesday’s! Apparently, Bull Riding is a higher priority since it has the usual Saturday night prime time slot.

I’d like to thank my parents for raising me close enough to Canada so that I can watch the High Def broadcast of CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada. NBC & Versus should really watch how they cover the NHL (as well as the Olympics) because they both have a lot to learn.

I completely forgot to post these when I made the HDTV Introduction Post.

Here’s a list of handy links for those of you that like to watch NHL games in HD:

NBC’s NHL Broadcast Schedule (all 9 weeks of it)
HDNet NHL Schedule
Versus NHL Game Schedule (assuming you can get Versus in HD)
CBC Hockey Night In Canada Schedule (Canada)
TSN’s NHL Schedule (Canada)

If you know of any other channels that carry NHL games in HD (even if they’re your local channels) then please post them so I can update the list.

I hate NBC Sports as far as their NHL & Olympic coverage goes. If I had this blog up last year, you’d have seen copies of the many emails I sent to NBC Sports about their lack of HD Hockey coverage as well as their lack of live HD Olympic events. In 2004 when the Olympics were in Greece, their HD channel was pretty much 24/7 HD Olympic programming. The SD feed was the usual daytime crap with a couple of hours of the Olympics at night. For whatever reason, they didn’t do that in 2006.

I’m also really upset at their lackluster attitude towards the NHL. They are the only major network (Versus is not a major network IMHO) that broadcasts NHL games. Supposedly they are all supposed to be in HD (all 9 regular season games - how’s that for a commitment to a sport?) but for whatever reason, the March 4th game I saw was in SD. The reason?:
NBC made a late decision not to air the Philadelphia/Pittsburgh game in high definition. We did not receive notification of the change until Friday evening. The Dallas/Detroit game, which was advertised as well over the past weeks, did air in high definition in other parts of the country. I apologize for the confusion and hope you will continue to watch our programming in the future

Who’s on this Sunday you ask? No one. I have no idea why they’re taking this Sunday off from showing NHL games, but my bet is that it’s golf.

And, while this has nothing to do with HD programing, I love how the show airing locally before the Sunday games is an infomercial, while the hosts plug their 30 minute online pregame show. Someone has to remind NBC that not everyone has a TV sitting next to their computers.

At least their NFL Games are in HD