CBC and the NHL Network go Original 6 Saturday night for the Maple Leafs lovefest, er, game. Boston is the opponent for Toronto in the early HNIC slot.
The other live NHL Network game this week is the Hometown Hockey game when Ottawa travels to Chicago on City TV. The game will be blacked out for me, but hoping to still get all the Hometown Hockey pregame coverage. For our Canadian readers, the game is on WGN, though I would imagine that would be blacked out due to the City TV telecast.
The late CBC game Saturday night has Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals making its annual Calgary trip.
City TV's Saturday night game features its own Original 6 matchup with the New York Rangers in Montréal.
Rogers Sportsnet One will run national games on Friday as the Vancouver Canucks go to Colorado and the New Jersey Devils are in Ottawa on Saturday. This is Ottawa's first game since the tragedy on Wednesday. The regional Sportsnet channels will team up to carry the all-Canadian matchup Monday night as Les Habs travel to Edmonton, as the World Series takes a night off.
Rogers Sportsnet 360 goes national on Wednesday with the Oilers hosting Nashville (also on Rogers Sportsnet One) and the Canadiens in Vancouver on Thursday.
Be forewarned that the NHL Center Ice free preview expires on Saturday. Sunday games are not available on the free preview. As for whether your humble narrator will get Center Ice, I still need a better system to get the feeds I want and in HD.
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NHL Network
Saturday
Boston @ Toronto, 7p
Sunday
Ottawa @ Chicago, 7p
Tape delayed
Friday Vancouver @ St. Louis, 2p
Saturday Vancouver @ Colorado, 1p
Monday Ottawa @ Chicago, 2p (1-hour)
Washington @ Vancouver, 3p (1-hour)
Tuesday Montréal @ Edmonton, 2p
Thursday Nashville @ Edmonton, 4p (1-hour)
CBC
Saturday
Boston @ Toronto, 7p
Washington @ Calgary, 10p
City
Saturday
NY Rangers @ Montréal, 7p
Sunday
Ottawa @ Chicago, 7p
Rogers Sportsnet
Monday
Montréal @ Edmonton, 9:30p
Rogers Sportsnet One
Friday
Vancouver @ Colorado, 9p
Saturday
New Jersey @ Ottawa, 7p
Rogers Sportsnet 360
Wednesday
Nashville @ Edmonton, 8p*
Thursday
Montréal @ Vancouver, 10p
NHL Center Ice
Friday
Tampa Bay @ Winnipeg, 8p
Vancouver @ Colorado, 9p
Carolina @ Edmonton, 9:30p
Saturday
Boston @ Toronto, 7p
NY Rangers @ Montréal, 7p
New Jersey @ Ottawa, 7p
Washington @ Calgary, 10p
* simulcast on Rogers Sportsnet One
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We touched on the NHL angle to Wednesday's tragedy in Ottawa. If you missed my thoughts on the tragedy, please click here.
The Toronto-Ottawa game has been rescheduled for November 9 at 6 pm Eastern. The City TV game that night — Vancouver at Anaheim — is pushed back to 9 pm Eastern.
Sportsnet or City TV should pick up the telecast since the postponed game was a national one. The NHL Network could pick up the game, given the symbolism of the Toronto-Ottawa game with the recent tragic events.
On the U.S. side, November 9 has already shifted dramatically. The NHL Network dumped out of the Oilers-Rangers game and picked up the City TV Hometown Hockey game at Anaheim.
This leaves Edmonton without a live U.S. TV game. The NHL Network could easily remedy the situation by picking up a late Saturday night CBC game featuring the Oilers.
If Rogers Sportsnet or City TV picks up the Battle of Ontario, the Hometown Hockey pregame will run before that game.
As a public service, let's offer a few Edmonton games for the NHL Network to consider. The most obvious one would be on Hockey Day in Canada as the Oilers will be in Ottawa for a 2 pm matinee.
The Battle of Alberta would give Calgary an extra game. The channel can choose the late Saturday CBC game in Calgary (January 31) or Edmonton (April 4).
The NHL Network could pick Saturday late CBC games involving U.S. teams such as St. Louis (February 28) or Philadelphia (March 21). Both games are in Edmonton, which violates an unofficial rule that the channel won't show a live game in Alberta.
The channel would have to dump one of its many U.S. games to carry the Oilers in Toronto (February 7) for an early HNIC game or in Montréal (February 12).
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We aren't going to be too obsessive with the announcers, but we have to make an exception this week. Bob Cole, Greg Millen, and Cassie Campbell-Pascall will team up for the late game in Calgary. Campbell-Pascall has been on the CBC late game all season, but this will be Cole and Millen's return to CBC.
Also, Cole doing a late game for CBC is highly unusual. The last West Coast game I remember Cole doing was a Habs matinee from Los Angeles. Cole is from Newfoundland and the late game starts at 11:30 pm Newfoundland time and will end just past 2 am Newfoundland time.
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If you liked Rogers on the first Saturday night, you probably liked Rogers this past Saturday night. The kids team intro (no longer an intro) did mention all the games, early and late. We had reporters check in from the games, but not the colour analysts.
Those who find HNIC to be too Leafs-centric might appreciate that the pregame spent little time on the Leafs game and more time on Colorado at the Bell Centre.
Don Cherry had slightly more than 5 minutes (5:14 by my stopwatch) and touched on a variety of topics.
The George Stroumboulopoulos interview during the 2nd intermission of the 2nd game was Trevor Linden, president of hockey operations for the Vancouver Canucks.
This week's guest was Jean-Sebastian Giguere, former Colorado goalie. Unlike Mark Messier from the first week, Giguere's presence was more useful since he knew the Colorado team rather well, including his experiences hosting Nathan McKinnon.
5 is the number on the panels for both CBC and Rogers. CBC would use an active player in that middle slot in the playoffs, but otherwise, used Glenn Healy in that role. Rogers is going with former players so far but rotating someone new each week.
Strombo sits in the "Ron MacLean" chair. Nick Kypreos or P.J. Stock? Tough choice, but not in a good way. Rogers is using Stock well in the "Stock Exchange" getting his rants out in one fell swoop.
Glenn Healy is better than most former players Rogers will get and Healy really does well in the Sunday Hometown Hockey game in the studio.
Kevin Weekes vs. Damien Cox? While Weekes might be awkward at times, he always contributes something relevant, something Cox could learn. I like Cox in the upstairs "Weekend Update" type news show, but that is about it.
Elliotte Friedman is the only one in both panels. We have to give the advantage to Friedman on the Rogers set. Instead of having to play off snarkiness from Stock or Healy, Friedman is able to dominate more of the conversation, but that also says the Rogers panel is overall weaker.
Darren Pang and Kelly Hrudey have day jobs, but Rogers needs to get some of their in-studio talent in on Saturday nights.
Rogers didn't hire Kevin Weekes but you have to wonder if Weekes couldn't have contributed in a similar fashion to Stock. Stock got too hyper having to compete for time on the panel and Weekes got too mellow. In an individual setting, they could have shined a lot better.
The NHL Network is an ideal destination for Weekes and he doesn't have to deal with Rogers.
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The announcers work for Rogers but acknowledge what channel they are broadcasting on in that game. Usually the play-by-play announcers will say going into break whether they are on CBC, City, Sportsnet One.
I did notice that Dave Randorf didn't say "CBC" once going into a break. Randorf read the promos for CBC shows and said "CBC" in the promos. Maybe Randorf isn't saying "City" either but we are highly sensitive over saying or not saying "CBC."
Paul Romanuk is more comfortable with identifying where he is, whether that be CBC or City. So far, Jim Hughson — a veteran of CBC — has called all the early CBC games.
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Don't want to ignore the Hometown Hockey, especially this week with getting to watch the City ads. My Comcast DVR punked out so the 30-minute pregame didn't tape.
The City TV promos center around its American shows such as "Scorpion" and "Revenge."
While I caught some of the program live, you can catch some of the segments at HometownHockey.com. From there, you can click on the city you want to see and select a video.
Hometown Hockey has been a nice chapter in the Rogers era.
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The NHL Network is proving more Canadian-friendly to start the season. We got the Rogers Sportsnet Vancouver feed for the Canucks-Blues on Thursday.
John Shorthouse gave a shout out to the NHL Network U.S. version during the game.
We got the Habs feed last week against Boston; John Bartlett also acknowledged the NHL Network in the U.S. during last week's Habs telecast.
Both games carried full Sportsnet intermissions and postgame. A nice improvement from previous years.
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2 of the 3 City Montréal games were available in the NHL Center Ice free preview. Magically, annoyingly, both feeds disappeared from NHL Center Ice. In the first game on October 13, we were told that the feed disappeared. On Tuesday night, NHL Center Ice moved the Detroit feed into the slot and had no other feed.
The folks at NHL Center Ice clearly don't know the games are on CJNT, City Montréal. And the fans suffer as a result. For this, they want over $150.
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The NHL Network took the Sportsnet 360 feed for the rebroadcast of the Bruins-Habs game Friday. NHL Network picked up the City TV feed with the Patrick Roy battle (Colorado at the Bell Centre) Sunday afternoon. This was particularly helpful since I couldn't get the City feed on Center Ice.
The Oilers feed was picked up for the Tuesday rebroadcast of the Lightning in Edmonton. The NHL Network picked up the Sportsnet feed of Washington at Edmonton to replace the postponed Battle of Ontario on Thursday afternoon.