The battle of Alberta is one of the most exciting rivalries in the NHL, a fact not lost in Canada but virtually non-existent in the United States.
Calgary and Edmonton have 0 appearances on NBC, 0 appearances on Versus or the NBC Sports Network, and 1 live game (Calgary-Nashville January 1) on the NHL Network. If you want to see either team, you have to wait many hours and not hear or see the final score.
Edmonton scored 2 goals in the first 3 minutes. After an early timeout, the Flames came back and evened things up after the first 7 minutes of the game. Then the teams played defense for about 2 full periods. The Oilers took the lead on a goal by Saturday night HNIC star Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Calgary quickly tied the game. Then a few minutes later, Calgary took the lead for good, and added an empty-net goal at the end for a 5-3 win.
Jarome Iginla, who had three assists in this game, is one of the best NHL players. Edmonton has a lot of young talent, including Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall, and Jordan Eberle. Too bad U.S. fans have to work really hard to see them in action.
If you missed the latest Battle of Alberta, the rematch is next week 10 pm Eastern Saturday night live on CBC and 1:30 pm Sunday afternoon on the NHL Network.
---
The NHL Network may not listen to everything we want, but the U.S. cable channel made one key change in our favor. The channel has changed its schedule to show Vancouver at Toronto live on December 17. This will be the first all-Canadian live matchup on U.S. TV since the Winnipeg Jets return to the NHL against Montréal.
The channel is blowing off the nighttime version (Vancouver at Ottawa) on December 10, though viewers in Tampa-St. Petersburg and Philadelphia will see the Canucks-Senators. Why can't Chicago be one of the teams in that scenario?
The schedule on December 11 allows for plenty of time for the channel to show a tape-delayed version of Vancouver-Ottawa, even with Coach's Corner and the Hot Stove. One's bloodstream can absorb only so many rerun episodes of NHL on the Fly.
---
The NHL Network bailed out at the end of Toronto-Boston, even though Jim Hughson pointed out that the CBC audience was going to go to overtime of the Ottawa-Washington game. CBC viewers saw the overtime; NHL Network went to NHL on the Fly with no live hockey.
A chance to get a live look-in at Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals' first win under new coach Dale Hunter, and the NHL Network didn't think that was worthy. Okay, so the Capitals never let Ottawa touch the puck in overtime, scoring 12 seconds into OT.
The NHL Network chose highlights over live hockey involving Alex Ovechkin, especially when the channel shows hours and hours of highlights all night long. The NHL Network should stay with Hockey Night in Canada as long as the CBC shows hockey.
---
Bob Cole lives in Topsail, Newfoundland and Labrador. Topsail is part of Conception Bay South in the province, southwest of St. John's, capital and largest city. This is about as far east as one can go in Canada. On the map, it looks like this area is parallel to the western part of Greenland, a long long way from even Toronto or Montréal.
Cole, who is 78, flies back and forth to the games he broadcasts as CBC's #2 play-by-play announcer. Fortunately for him, most of those flights are to Eastern destinations: Montréal, Toronto, Boston, New Jersey. Though he travels a lot, the idea of a West Coast flight could have been problematic; some on the Internet figured the CBC wouldn't send Cole to Los Angeles for the matinee on Saturday afternoon.
Cole was at the Staples Center with the much younger Garry Galley and Cassie-Campbell Pascall. The sunshine and 17° C (63° F) weather sounded like it did Cole some good. Hopefully, Cole got to spend a few days in the sun before going to New Jersey next Saturday with a few days back in Newfoundland and Labrador.
---
Saturday night featured the obvious "capital" battle as Ottawa was in Washington in the game between the teams from the national capitals. In the four games Saturday night on the CBC, all of them took place in a capital. Toronto (capital of Ontario) was in Boston (capital of Massachusetts), Ottawa at Washington, New Jersey at Winnipeg (capital of Manitoba), and Calgary at Edmonton (capital of Alberta).
---
If you caught the Montréal at San Jose rebroadcast game on the NHL Network, hopefully you noticed in the middle of the second period when the Comcast Sports Net Bay Area feed aired about 2 minutes of audio courtesy of RDS.
Coming back from break at the 11:58 mark of the 2nd period, you heard the audio of Pierre Houde and Marc Denis call the action via RDS, the French-language sports channel. You can tell early on that they acknowledged to their RDS audience that CSN Bay Area was listening into the feed. At 9:12 remaining, you heard Houde bid the American audience "Adieu" into the break.
Sharks announcers Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda had some fun, pointing out that the names sounded familiar during the French language debate, and that "disc" for "puck" was very recognizable. The detour was a nice way of pointing out the predominance of the French language in Montréal. In the current schedule, teams in opposite conferences only play 1 time, so the Sharks announcers won't be going to La Belle Province this season, unless the Canadiens play San Jose in the Stanley Cup finals.
"Are there more passionate fans in the NHL than the hockey fans in Montréal? I don't know. I'd put them up against any fan base in North America for any sport," said Hahn.
We would agree. Nicely done.
Comments