U.S. viewers got to see the debuts of the two major players in this week's big trade between the Montréal Canadiens and the Calgary Flames.
Michael Cammalleri was quoted from an English translation of a French translation of English words of a losing attitude. While Montréal management said the thought of trading Cammalleri was bandied about for some time, the trade came very soon afterward, very very soon.
Cammalleri scored the Flames only goal in the loss to Los Angeles Saturday night.
Rene Borque made his debut Sunday night against the New York Rangers as the NBC Sports Network is taking to showing games on Sunday nights. Borque was scoreless in his Habs debut.
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Mark Giordano of the Calgary Flames has a wonderful story to tell: undrafted at every level, humanitarian, played in Russia. Giordano was the guest on CBC's "After Hours," but U.S. viewers on the NHL Network only got ½ of the program.
This wasn't an accident. The NHL Network deliberately didn't show 30 minutes (including commercials) from the program. Why? Have no idea.
The schedule for the U.S. cable channel didn't have anything earth-shattering in its way. The channel ran two viewings of the same "Oil Change" episode. NHL Network had 15 hours of NHL Tonight in a row.
Once again, we had to resort to watching After Hours online from cbcsports.ca. This is getting ridiculous. Some weeks, the second game isn't on. Some weeks, it's all there. This past week, the game was there, but not all of After Hours.
Anytime anyone from the NHL Network wants to contact us, we're here and we're listening.
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The newly renamed NBC Sports Network showed its first Canadiens game Sunday night, the first for the channel since November 21. Thanks to a snafu with my Comcast DVR, I missed the intro and the first few minutes of the coverage.
The New York Rangers are so hot these days, the announcers had no choice but to talk a lot about them. Brian Engblom, the former Canadien, gave some good perspective on the craziness of the media coverage of Les Habs, in the context of the Cammalleri comments and trade.
In the teaser for the intermission after the 1st period, we were promised a segment on the Americans impact in Montréal. Sounded like a repeat of the segments NBC and Versus ran a couple of years when the Canadiens were hot in the playoffs. As insulting as the segment would be, the channel didn't air it.
You got the impression that Dave Strader and Brian Engblom watched some CBC Saturday night. They talked a lot about the Rangers game in Toronto. They mentioned the Hot Stove segment (featuring NBCSN's Mike Milbury). True, they could have watched all of that on the NHL Network. However, being in Montréal made it easy to watch CBC.
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In watching the third period Thursday night, the Montréal Canadiens seemed more concerned about trading Mike Cammalleri than beating Boston. The Habs were in a huge battle with their tough rivals in Boston, and went without Cammalleri in the crucial 3rd period. The fact that Gord Miller and Mike Johnson from TSN were talking about the Canadiens on the bench wondering where their teammmate was being traded.
The trade felt like a distraction in a game Montréal needed to win to keep up. Ironically, the major player the Habs got back (Rene Borque) wasn't eligible to come back, and only made his debut Sunday night against the New York Rangers.
During Saturday night's Los Angeles-Calgary game, Mark Lee reported that Cammalleri wasn't told where he was being traded because they waited until the Calgary game started so that Borque would have served that game as part of his suspension.
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The major sub-plot for the LA-Calgary game was the first meeting ever between brothers Darryl and Brent Sutter. Darryl was the coach and later GM of the Flames before being asked to resign. Reportedly, Darryl and Brent hadn't spoken for a year before talking just before this game.
On Saturday night, Darryl topped Brent.
This was a game on paper that should have been shown live. And the NHL Network is so afraid to do so.
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One Boston Bruins player who wasn't there on Thursday's game was Brad Marchand. As you may know, Marchand received a 5-game suspension for upending Sami Salo. Seeing a Boston player suspended was incredible; seeing a Boston player suspended for something against Vancouver was even more amazing.
The 5-game suspension was one more game that Aaron Rome got in the Stanley Cup playoffs; however, 5 regular season games aren't nearly as significant as 4 Stanley Cup finals games. Rome didn't mean to hit Nathan Horton; Marchand's play looked deliberate. Rome felt concern; Marchand falsely claimed self-defense.
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Mike Milbury hasn't completely disappeared from the CBC after all, though his visits will be via satellite in Connecticut. Milbury appeared on the Hot Stove feature during the first game Saturday night. His presence at a former GM was helpful in analyzing moves made by Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier. Milbury thought it extremely bad to limit yourself to only a few destinations in trading a player. Elliotte Friedman talked to a GM who was surprised to see that Cammalleri was available.
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The Canadiens will have back-to-back appearances on the NHL Network next weekend. Montréal will be at Pittsburgh Friday night; the feed will either be TSN-Habs or Root Sports. The Canadiens will be the road team in Toronto for the primary Hockey Night in Canada game Saturday night.
San Jose will be at Vancouver on Saturday afternoon on the NHL Network. Given the 4 pm tipoff, we won't see all of the Hockey Tonight pre-game from the CBC. The cable channel will join Hockey Tonight in progress after the Sharks-Canucks. The feed will either be Comcast Sports Net California or Rogers Sports Net Pacific.
The NHL Network won't carry the Battle of Alberta — Calgary @ Edmonton — on Sunday. The unofficial reason is that the channel doesn't want to compete against the NBC telecast (Washington at Pittsburgh — yawn!). The channel used to show rebroadcasts on Sunday mornings, but has ruled that out for some reason.
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