This is the first week since Opening Night that the NHL Network won't carry a Hockey Night in Canada game. The U.S. cable channel is allergic to the Battle of Ontario and the New York Rangers at the Bell Centre didn't hold enough interest.
The NHL Network will air Nashville at Detroit in the time slot. The cable channel has stated that it will show Coach's Corner and Hot Stove during the breaks of that game. If not, you can catch the segments online via cbcsports.ca.
Also, in taping Hockey Tonight on weeks where the NHL Network will not show the 7 pm Eastern game, tape an extra 15 minutes in case the channel shows a bit more coverage before switching viewers to the American game.
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NHL Network
Tape delayed
Friday NY Rangers @ Ottawa, 1p
Monday Vancouver @ Detroit, 1p
Tuesday Toronto @ Philadelphia, 1p / Montréal @ Ottawa, 3p
Thursday Montréal @ Toronto, 1p
CBC
Saturday
Toronto @ Ottawa, 7p (nationwide except Quebec)
NY Rangers @ Montréal, 7p (Quebec)
Minnesota @ Calgary, 10p
TSN
Monday
Toronto @ Philadelphia, 7p
Tuesday
Winnipeg @ NY Rangers, 7p
Wednesday
Montréal @ Toronto, 7:30p
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We criticize the NHL Network for their lack of enthusiasm of showing Canadian teams live. The key word is live. The channel has shown enthusiasm of showing the teams on tape delay.
This week, the channel is showing 5 games on tape delay. Most weeks, the channel is offering 3-4 games. The channel has had a decent amount from Canadian feeds, though we got MSG feeds in the 2 games this past week.
The other nice change for the NHL Network is that the bottom bar is thinner, and they aren't showing the previous night scores. So if you worked hard to not know the score, you can watch the game without knowing which team won.
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Don Cherry says what Matt Cooke did to Erik Karlsson was an accident. "It was a freak accident. No human being would do that."
Some of my reaction on the Twitter feed got a little irrational, which is unlike me. The frustration went beyond Erik Karlsson getting hurt and Matt Cooke doing the damage.
The issue isn't the hit, but more than certain players and teams aren't going to get punished. So their players can do whatever they want, accident or on purpose, and get away with their actions.
Also, so many rushed to Cooke's defense, citing his 18 months of non-incidents as opposed to his 5 suspensions. Maybe Cooke has changed, maybe, but too many were too quick to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Ottawa owner Eugene Melnyk was brutal in his assessment about Cooke, and didn't get reprimanded.
The Canadian teams don't seem to have as much depth as some American teams. Some American teams make it a point to do cheap shots, and know because they belong to a select group, their players won't get punished, or if they somehow do, the punishment won't fit the crime.
Pittsburgh is one of those teams. Matt Cooke is one of those players. Even if Cooke did what he did on purpose, Cooke knows a punishment isn't coming.
Yes, players should wear Kevlar socks and tape. But the NHL needs to address the perception that certain players and certain teams want to deliberately inflict damage on other players and other teams.
Boston won a Stanley Cup after Zdeno Chara went unpunished in his deliberate elbow to Max Pacioretty. Duncan Keith non-hockey hit dealt a fatal blow to Vancouver's 2012 playoff run. The more this behavior gets rewarded, the more it will continue.
This wasn't going to be Ottawa's year even before the skate slash on Karlsson. But this still has a bad taste in our mouths.
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"Because we're here in Western New York, a couple hundred yards from the Canadian border, the Sabres honor both countries before every game, regardless of who is playing."
Gord Miller introduced the NBC audience to the Buffalo custom. Miller is Canadian and does a lot of games in Buffalo. The Sabres also draw a significant portion of its fan base from Southern Ontario.
Still, pretty cool to see O Canada broadcast nationwide on Hockey Day in America. And I couldn't help but tweet that the first 3 goals of the first game were scored by Canadians.
The telecast promoted future games on the NHL properties, but conveniently ignored the Carolina-Montréal game on NHL Network. I can respect the idea of Hockey Day in America, but if this means that Canada isn't part of the mix, well, that is ridiculous. In mentioning college players, the graphics counted Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith as "American" because they went to U.S. colleges. Lame.
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Kudos to the NHL Network for using the TSN-Habs feed for the live Canadiens telecast. Was funny to see Mike Johnson in the NHL Network studio. After all, Johnson works some local Montréal games for TSN-Habs.
Dave Randorf worked with Bobby Dollas. I had my concerns about Randorf as a play-by-play guy but he's pretty good. Bobby Dollas was new to my ears; he sounded a little nervous early in the game, but at his worst, he's light years ahead of Brian Hayward.
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One occasional perk of living in a NHL city is seeing the alternate game on the NHL Network feed. When San Jose was at Chicago Friday night, viewers in the Bay Area and Chicago got to see the Rogers Sportsnet feed of St. Louis at Calgary. The Blues-Flames started 30 minutes after the primary game, so you had to sit through studio coverage.
In fact, Billy Jaffe was explaining his take on Ottawa owner Eugene Melnyk's remarks on Matt Cooke when the channel went to commercial in the middle of Jaffe's sentence. We never heard the rest of what he had to say. Probably a coincidence, but it felt like the network didn't want us to hear the rest of Jaffe's remarks.
The only disappointment with the game coverage was the game itself. St. Louis coasted to an easy win.
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