NBCSN added a Montréal Canadiens game, and we are very unhappy.
Saturday night is Hockey Night in Canada, and NBCSN is interrupting that for the U.S. audience. The channel will carry the Habs in Long Island.
Despite my pleas for Gord Miller and Ray Ferraro or anyone from Canada to do this game, Dave Strader and Brian Engblom will have the call.
The NHL Network had Toronto at Vancouver, the early CBC game on its schedule. The channel was forced to drop the game once NBCSN made its move.
Vancouver has suffered way too many dropped games this season. NBCSN could pick up a Vancouver game or a weekday Habs game. Leave Saturday night for Hockey Night in Canada.
The late CBC game this week features the Calgary Flames visiting their old friend Jarome Iginla in Denver.
The Habs game is on City TV in Canada. The Flyers travel to Ottawa for the Sunday night Hometown Hockey in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Rogers Sportsnet has the Jets Saturday night as Winnipeg travels to Tampa. The channels had Columbus at Edmonton scheduled for Wednesday night, but they have dropped that game for a U.S. matchup.
The Saturday Rogers pregame will only be partially shown thanks to an all-U.S. game scheduled for 4 pm Eastern. If that game runs long, we might not even get a pregame. And yes, the NHL Network has no plans to run the pregame show at another time.
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NBCSN
Saturday
Montréal @ NY Islanders, 7p
Tape delayed
Friday Ottawa at Montréal, 4p
Tuesday Montréal @ Tampa Bay, 2p
Toronto @ Edmonton, 4p
Thursday Columbus at Edmonton, 3p
CBC
Saturday
Toronto @ Vancouver, 7p
Calgary @ Colorado, 10p
City
Saturday
Montréal @ NY Islanders, 7p
Sunday
Philadelphia @ Ottawa, 7p
Rogers Sportsnet
Saturday
Winnipeg @ Tampa Bay, 7p
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A sign that March has arrived: the Maple Leafs are virtually ignored in the Saturday pregame. Rogers started out with Winnipeg and Nashville, then with Montréal in its trip to the desert. Once they got to the Leafs game, the talk went to the blues, as in St. Louis.
Outside the Stock Exchange, the Leafs didn't come up at all. Kudos to Rogers for putting the playoff-bound teams ahead of the Leafs. Bad news for CBC fans who have been stuck with the Leafs every single week Toronto has played on Saturday night. Next week, the Habs will be on CBC and the Battle of Ontario shifts to Sportsnet.
Dan Bylsma filled in for Kelly Hrudey on the panel. Hrudey was in Boston the night before and easily could have made the trip to Toronto, but Hrudey got the night off. Unfortunately for the viewing audience, Nick Kypreos had nothing else to do.
Vancouver played in the late game, but was invisible except for Shawn McKenzie's mistake. McKenzie's was rinkside for the Jets game and tossed it to Dan Murphy, the Canucks regular rinkside reporter, working the Habs game. McKenzie mentioned the Canucks by accident, but was the only one to say the team's name in the pregame.
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The NHL Network cut off the first few seconds of Coach's Corner. While we didn't miss much, the channel needs to cut off its commercial to return to the programming. There was a time when the channel would run the intro and the commercial, so the programmers shouldn't be that greedy.
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We've gone awhile without CBC in-game promos. The 1st period was devoted to "Schitt's Creek" promos. "Ascension," starring Tricia Helfer, was in the spotlight in the 2nd period (and yes, the promos specifically mention Helfer). The 3rd period focused on "X Company." The final Leafs game of the NHL Network season does not mean the final CBC promos for the regular season.
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We got wonderful news having the Rogers Sportsnet West feed for the Flames in Boston.
The NHL Network brought back the score bug, a serious distraction when you don't want to know the score of the game you are watching. By mid-afternoon, the NHL Network shouldn't be running scores from the night before, especially in an elevated score bug from the scroll.
Also, we know the NHL Network is reluctant to show replays of goals in rebroadcasts, but the shootout winner was worth a better look, but we didn't get a chance to see the replay.
We got the Rogers Sportsnet Ontario feed for the Leafs home game against the New York Islanders. Dave Randorf filled in for Paul Romanuk, who called the Hometown Hockey game on Sunday.
The NHL Network was going to carry the Anaheim @ Vancouver rebroadcast Tuesday afternoon, but dropped it to show an old Rangers-Islanders game. yet another Vancouver game dropped by the channel.
We got the St. Louis feed for the Jets game Wednesday afternoon. The Rogers Sportsnet East feed was used for the Habs rebroadcast against Tampa Bay that same afternoon.
Canadian feeds ruled on Thursday with the Rogers Sportsnet regional feeds for the Connor McDavid Bowl (Buffalo @ Toronto) and the Sportsnet West feed for the Flames hosting Anaheim.
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