The Stadium Series dominates this week's schedule to the detriment of watching Canadian teams on both sides of the border.
CBC is not carrying a late Canadian game on Saturday and TSN's early Wednesday game features no Canadian teams.
CBC is offering Toronto at Winnipeg to Canada outside Quebec and Washington at the Bell Centre to Quebec. The NHL Network is not carrying a game on Saturday night, a sacrifice too big for the Stadium Series, to show a pre-game show.
The channel might show Coach's Corner during the California pre-game show; otherwise, you will have to check online. NHL Network will show "Hockey Tonight" at 6:30 pm Eastern.
If the Montréal at Detroit TSN telecast on Friday night looks familiar, that game was on the NHL Network's original schedule. The game is no longer on the schedule because the NHL Network is carrying outdoor practice in Los Angeles, another casualty of the Stadium Series.
"I know it's important, I honestly do but we're talking about practice. We're talking about practice man. We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We're not talking about the game. We're talking about practice." — Allan Iverson, philosopher.
You might have blinked to see a non-CBC live game on the NHL Network. Yes, the Habs are in Boston (a matchup normally handled by NBCSN as we'll see in March) on Thursday night. This marks the first non-CBC live game on the NHL Network U.S. version since December 20 when Vancouver was in Chicago. I have to go back to December 16, when Toronto traveled to Pittsburgh.
TSN features 2 of Chicago's 3 games in Western Canada in Calgary on Tuesday and Vancouver on Wednesday. The 10:30 pm start time is later than normal to protect the incoming Stadium Series game, also on TSN. Martin St. Louis and the Tampa Bay Lightning visit Toronto for the early TSN game on Tuesday.
And both NHL Network rebroadcasts involve Chicago, so I'm shut out of that this coming week.
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NHL Network
Thursday
Montréal @ Boston, 7pTape delayed
Monday Winnipeg @ Chicago, 1p
Thursday Chicago @ Vancouver, 1p
CBC
Saturday
Toronto @ Winnipeg, 7p (National except Quebec)
Washington @ Montréal, 7p (Quebec)
TSN
Friday
Montréal @ Detroit, 7:30p
Tuesday
Tampa Bay @ Toronto, 7p
Chicago @ Calgary, 9:30p
Wednesday
Chicago @ Vancouver, 10:30p
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The theme of community stretched throughout Hockey Day in Canada. Well, maybe not the first 2 seconds of the game at Rogers Arena in Vancouver. Or the hallway after the 1st period. Welcome to Hockey Brawl in Canada.
As Rick Ball and Kelly Hrudey pointed out, the visiting team has to give its lineup first. The Calgary lineup was filled with 4th-line players. They noticed that Vancouver also started its 4th line.
Ball and Hrudey had a hunch something was coming before the puck was dropped, but they couldn't have predicted a line brawl. Best line from Hrudey was that how much P.J. Stock would love this. And the "Studio 42" crew was in Vancouver for the game.
Yes, Calgary is trying prove how tough its team can be. Talented, no, but tough, yes. And John Tortorella has a reputation, confirmed by his behavior after the 1st period ended.
The Calgary Flames deserve the blame for starting the fracas. John Tortorella deserved his punishment for what he did after the 1st period ended. Rarely do I agree exactly with a NHL punishment.
Don Cherry noted earlier in the evening on "Coach's Corner" that he thinks Vancouver will go to the finals this year. Perhaps the team will get a spark from Tortorella's anger, but they'll have to go awhile without that spark in the locker room.
Not that every late CBC game is this exciting, but the NHL Network has to kick themselves for not carrying this game.
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Ron MacLean wanted to illustrate the Alberta/Saskatchewan split in Lloydminster for Hockey Day in Canada. His jersey was split in half with the white of the Edmonton Oilers and the green of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Saskatchewan has no NHL franchise, and the Roughriders are coming off the Grey Cup win in November. MacLean wore a Calgary Flames toque just to get every area team some air time.
Learned a lot about how Lloydminster was formed in the early part of the telecast on Saturday. The best parallel to the dual cities would be Derby Line, Vermont and Stanstead, Quebec. Kansas City (Missouri and Kansas) in two states and Sault Ste. Marie (Michigan and Ontario) in two countries share the same name, but those are separate entities.
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In other Hockey Day in Canada notes …
Celebrity power was well into effect at the Air Canada Centre. Chris Hadfield, the world's favorite astronaut, sang O Canada switching to French in the middle in a nod to Les Habs. We all know from the David Bowie cover that singing is just one of Hadfield's talents.
Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers made an appearance on Hockey Day in Canada. Turns out the Lakers were in town to take on the Raptors on Sunday. The CBC cameras showed Bryant just before the 2nd period got underway.
Given the constraints of hosting Hockey Day in Canada, each game needed its own host. Rob Pizzo handled those duties from Ottawa while Mitch Peacock ran those duties in Winnipeg. David Amber, who will be one of the CBC morning Olympics hosts, added that as part of his duties in Toronto.
Would have been nice to see the end of the Oilers-Jets game but the games ended around the same time, though the game in Winnipeg went briefly to overtime.
Edmonton and Winnipeg get literally one live telecast each all season on U.S. television, so we were rooting for a shootout. And the NHL Network wasn't going to dump out of the telecast.
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If you did see Saturday night's Calgary-Vancouver game, you saw the game that snapped the consecutive game streak for Henrik Sedin. The Canucks captain had been questionable for Saturday's game with bruised ribs; those same ribs kept Sedin out of Tuesday's game in Edmonton.
Sedin's streak of 679 games was the 6th longest in NHL history. Doug Jarvis holds the all-time record with 964 games. Former Calgary defenseman Jay Bouwmeester continues with the longest current streak, now up to 686.
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NHL Revealed debuted on NBCSN (U.S.) and CBC (Canada) this week. Similar to 24/7 for the Winter Classic, the show follows around the Stadium Series teams. So we will hear from the Ottawa Senators and Vancouver Canucks in the 7 episodes now through March.
Since 3 of the 5 games air in the next week, the focus wasn't on the two Canadian teams. Still, we got to see what some of the Senators did in Nashville. Erik Karlsson, whose skating was complimented by Bobby Orr twice in the episode, was shown buying cowboy boots. A few other players — Kyle Turris, Patrick Wiercioch, Matt Kassian, and Craig Anderson — went in search of a nice steak in Nashville.
Jason Spezza weighed in on how every game is a playoff game. Even though the Senators made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs, they are little known in the States.
The Canucks were featured more as Anaheim's opponent, though John Tortorella was shown addressing his team. The naughty words were bleeped on NBCSN, but may have aired on CBC.
The best related segment went to Martin Brodeur with what might be his last trip as a pro to Montreal. Other than an Islanders trip to Toronto, this was the most time spent on Canadian soil.
Reruns of each episode was air on the NHL Network (U.S.) and Rogers Sportsnet (Canada). The debuts run Wednesdays on NBCSN and Thursdays on CBC.
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The Rogers telecasts offer someone a chance at $1,000,000 (paid out over 20 years) if a player on the team of the telecast scores 5 goals in a game. Sounds great, but 5 goals in a game is pretty rare.
Martin St. Louis, who was left off the Canadian Olympic hockey team, scored 4 goals in a game against San Jose. Tampa Bay lost the game 5-4 to the Sharks, thanks to a Joe Pavelski hat trick.
Canadian contests require a skills testing question to win a prize. There would be plenty of pressure to get that question right to get $1,000,000.
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Yes, Gord Miller sneaked over to the U.S. side for last night's NBCSN game in Uniondale as Sidney Crosby and the Penguins came to town. Miller will work for NBC on Super Bowl Sunday as the NBC crews are headed to Sochi.
As with gov't (Cdn.) lotteries, that million dollar prize might be a tax-free prize. Also of note, in Canada the fed. / prov. tax codes allow for approx. the first $9,600 of a person's annual income as being tax-exempt.
Posted by: CQ | January 24, 2014 at 01:34 PM
I know that Canadian tax rates are higher than the U.S. when it comes to really rich people. So winning that kind of prize tax-free would be a bit of a surprise. Might have to do a story on that.
Posted by: Chad | January 24, 2014 at 04:29 PM