Mike Milbury was missing from this past weekend's coverage of Hockey Night in Canada due to assault allegations following an altercation between Milbury's son and a kid from an opposing team.
Whether Milbury will return to NBC/Versus/NBC Sports Network is to be determined by factors including the American justice system. People should be presumed innocent, so we don't have a comment on that part of the story.
What was interesting is that Milbury has done his last CBC appearance, and that has nothing to do with the assault charges. As Puck the Media noted, Milbury had only one more week left with the CBC before joining NBC exclusively.
Milbury is the second NBC employee who gave up a Canadian on-air connection thanks to the new NBC/Comcast NHL TV deal. Pierre McGuire left TSN to work exclusively for the NBC Sports Group.
For those who thought Milbury might replace Don Cherry on "Coach's Corner," the lure of American money and exposure, along with a solid 10-year network deal, can be too tempting. Especially with Milbury having a son who plays hockey, all those round trip flights between Connecticut and Toronto could have been distracting.
While Milbury did add his own distinct flavor to the HNIC telecasts, some of his crankiness won't be missed on the broadcasts, and his time on the Hot Stove didn't contribute anything significant. Since Milbury's CBC departure was expected, the network has had some time to consider who will replace Milbury on the Hot Stove.
It would be nice if the CBC replaced Milbury on the Hot Stove and on the panel with a Canadian. There should be plenty to choose from in the talent pool.
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The Hot Stove this week didn't miss Milbury as the emphasis was on the new Canadiens coach Randy Cunneyworth. Francois Gagnon from La Presse stepped in from outside the Bell Centre to add thoughts from Montréal on the firing on Jacques Martin. One of the concerns about Cunneyworth is that he is an Anglophone, a distinct disadvantage in La Belle Province.
U.S. viewers on the NHL Network missed the intro and the first question to Gagnon; this was a very sloppy transition.
Gagnon pointed out that for Canadiens fans, winning was most important. He also noted that being an Anglophone GM wasn't as much of a problem as being an Anglophone coach, presumably since the coach deals more with the press than the general manager.
Cunneyworth played 5 seasons for Ottawa, including a stint as captain, in the NHL and has worked as a Montreal assistant this season: while he wouldn't be completely bilingual, hopefully Cunneyworth knows some French. If he can't win, his French won't matter.
The person Montreal should have hired was its long-time assistant Kirk Mueller, who was named head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes. Mueller had a long career playing for Montreal and was an assistant coach through last season. We'll see whether Montréal made the right choice for its hockey team.
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When the CBC feed came back at the 13:40 mark in the 1st period, the camera showed us the Vancouver bench and no reaction from the announcers. Once we heard Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson talk about Montréal and Winnipeg, you figured that the feed was trying to go back to the studio to show highlights of the other two early games. We assume this was a CBC error.
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Last December, we had some cool weekday peeks of Hockey Night in Canada to delight us during the holiday season. The NHL Network was gracious to show the CBC coverage live and the presentations made for great holiday television.
This year, CBC didn't have those games, and the only weekday outing was Thursday night's Philadelphia-Montréal contest. Though most Canadiens games aren't broadcast in English, the Flyers-Canadiens battle from the Bell Centre was on TSN, so we were hoping for some Gord Miller and Ray Ferraro.
Unfortunately, we got Comcast Sports Philadelphia, and while they aren't that bad, having a local American crew in Montréal just isn't the same. The NHL Network decided to show us the Canadian anthem, but only 95% of it, interestingly, not showing us the U.S. anthem.
Given Comcast's relationship with national hockey in the U.S. and the NHL Network, we weren't shocked about the CSN placement. In the holiday season, having TSN would have been a nice present.
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Depending on availability, Thursday was a Comcast night to remember as some markets got Washington at Winnipeg. CSN Washington had some nice shots of the MTS Centre and downtown Winnipeg. Had to love the sign at Portage and Main, an iconic intersection in downtown Winnipeg. The Capitals and the Jets play each other the same amount of times as Detroit-Chicago, Boston-Montréal, and Edmonton-Calgary, so trips to the Manitoba capital aren't a big deal for the Washington audience. However, this will be the only year Washington and Winnipeg will be in the same division, so this love for Winnipeg won't be as intense, starting next season.
Too bad Winnipeg couldn't reward the American audience with a goal, much less a win. As well as the team played on defense, the offensive output was rather sad.
Though we have made it clear that we really don't like Joe Beninati, Capitals play-by-play guy, he did have a good line about the capacity of MTS Centre being about 15,000 but it sounded more like 150,000 inside the arena. Winnipeg's crowd enthusiasm is a selling point that most Americans aren't hearing much about in hockey coverage. Thanks for the kind words.
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Anaheim at Winnipeg on paper didn't seem like an exciting matchup. But CBC knew better, moving Bob Cole and Garry Galley to Winnipeg. All of this for the return of Teemu Selanne.
Selanne is one of the few players who played for the old Jets who is still in the NHL. Selanne also had the distinction of being the only opposing player not to get booed. Not even Shane Doan could escape the boos when the Coyotes came back.
Selanne was a young star for the Jets and was traded to Anaheim shortly before the Jets left Winnipeg.
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For those that Canucks fans are paranoid about how badly the referees treat them, the waved off goal in the 1st period was proof that some of this concern is very real. One of the refs was nowhere near the play, and came out of his way to wave off the goal for interference. When we saw the replay, the clear consensus was that there was no interference before the goal was scored, and what might have been with a great acting job by Toronto goalie Jonas Gustavsson.
Also, watching Vancouver get called for goalie interference is even more frustrating given all the times that Chicago got away with real goalie interference against Vancouver in the playoffs.
Though it was funny that the NHL Network on its ever-annoying score bar at the bottom of the screen gave Vancouver a 2-1 lead, when the game was actually tied at 1.
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We saw the return of the NHL Network's score box on top of its annoying scroll bar at the bottom of the screen. So we knew which team won the Edmonton vs. San Jose game. The tape-delayed broadcasts are wrongly labeled as encore presentations; the NHL Network is airing this for the first time. Imagine if a local TV station aired a mystery, and showed a scroll at the bottom of the screen telling you who committed the murder.
We can get the scores from the Internet. If it's 1:30 pm Eastern the next day, and I don't know which teams have won, I shouldn't have to rely on the NHL Network.
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Though the Chicago Blackhawks on WGN only airs in Chicago in the United States, the local WGN feed is carried in Canada. I attended the Hawks 4-2 win over Calgary on Sunday night that aired on WGN. Jim Cornelison sings the anthems for the Hawks, so he is very familiar with O Canada.
In person, it sounded like he sang the right lyrics, though given the acoustics of the United Center, you can't always tell. When watching the replay on WGN, I noticed that Cornelison sang "With glowing hearts we hear thee rise." The correct lyric is "With glowing hearts we see thee rise." If you can hear someone rise, that person must be really loud.
