EHM The Blue Line

As I mentioned in another of our threads this was such a missed opportunity as this upcoming weekend is the totally dead sports weekend. It's the first one since summer there hasn't been a baseball or football game on and it's the week between the final playoff games and the Superbowl, and yet they put the game on a Wednesday But then after seeing the chaos that ensued last night I was actually glad the sport's "Showcase Game" was going to be on when nobody could see what a joke the league has become.

ESPN did a great job with the NHL actually, even gave them a daily half hour show NHL2nite just for hockey talk and highlights. I guess there's too much exciting bull riding to cover on Versus to do anything like that though.

But yeah, off the negativity kick as B72 said, this is a cool thing:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/6400 ... 62&ATT=142

I saw them show the troops in a luxury box posing with the Stanley Cup which was cool, but they didn't mention them meeting them at the airport, that was a nice touch. Now I'll actually tune into the ASG tonight because I want to see the goalie masks they designed for the troops too.

ESPN wasn't so bad either, was it?

Actually, I think I'd have to go with Versus over ESPN. Simply because Versus at least broadcasts games. ESPN seemed to only care once the late playoff rounds hit.

B. Stinson wrote:

ESPN wasn't so bad either, was it?

Actually, I think I'd have to go with Versus over ESPN. Simply because Versus at least broadcasts games. ESPN seemed to only care once the late playoff rounds hit.

ESPN would broadcast the games... it just seemed like it was always the same handful of teams. They had a serious love of the Rangers. Of course this is because they think the world revolves around New York. Once the playoffs kicked in, that's when ABC would broadcast some of the games.

Well, ESPN sucked as far as showing games on the main channel true but in the second half of the season they had a couple games each night on ESPN2 which is a lot more than Versus has right now. That was however before ESPN saw the lockout coming and decided to not renew their contract and kill off NHL2Nite as well

I'm just waiting for "The NHL All-Star game, This time it matters." I'm sure they will try throwing in a gimmick like MLB did with their All-Star game that no one cared about. I have to say, even during the skills competition, it didn't even look like the players were having fun. Maybe that was just the fault of the broadcast, but all the players looked bored.

Bored is a good word for it. It seemed like everyone involved from players to fans were thoroughly bored. The crowd was dead and I don't blame them. The biggest hit of the night was the woman who sang O Canada hitting the deck as she attempted to get off the ice. It was also the most entertaining moment of the night too.

The problem started early though as everyone took to the ice in their new ReeboKling jerseys looking about as comfortable as men trying to skate in a three piece suit. Did anyone else notice the almost complete lack of arm movement by all players and the general sense of uncomfortableness and overly rigid posture on every player in those things?

Though better than the skills comp this was still a hack job by Versus, I couldn't stand watching the marvel that was the rail cam anymore after about midway in the second. If I wasn't easting dinner at the time I wouldn't have even stayed tuned that long, once I got finished I was playing EHM and watching the game at the same time I had to turn it off after they thoroughly embarrassed themselves when they had to figure out live that they were broadcasting the commentators into Turco's mask when they were only supposed to be interviewing him. Nice work by the tech crew there. "Maybe we should be quiet when they are in your end then." and Turco replies "Nah, keep going, I'll get used to it." and eventually has the ref pull the cord for the speaker out so he isn't driven mad and then replace it when he's to again tlak to the broadcast guys.

Speaking of a lack of silence... sports announcers in general have to learn to let the sports they are covering speak for themselves instead of talking over them, not to mention stuffing the urge to make everything "a great story" and every play a "great play". I fully expect that sometimes even they are saying to themselves afterwords "Wow, even >I< don't believe what I just said." The perfect example was that while I was watching they twice referred to what a great story Yannic Perreault is. No, he's a great example of players that shouldn't be in All-Star games.

Ed Jovonovski was there so there was no need to have yet another Coyote considering they are one of the worst teams in the league. Twice referring to him as a "great story" since he wasn't good enough for anyone but Phoenix to even give him a second look for 1/3 of the season and his being at the all-star game doesn't make him a "great story". He didn't overcome anything, he simply went from unemployed to employed and put up okay stats for a team that's a mess.

And how much more of a sham does the "Mark Messier Cold-FX Leadership Award" have to show itself to be than to give the award to Crosby so they can talk him up during the All-Star Game? Transparent much?? The focus they heaped upon Crosby and Ovechkin was embarrassing to the point of saying "Every other player that was named to this team and every player in the history of hockey? They all suck compared to these two kids." The whole thing was a freakin disgrace.

The biggest hit of the night was the woman who sang O Canada hitting the deck as she attempted to get off the ice. It was also the most entertaining moment of the night too.

And the following...will get me banned.

You mean screeched. The only anthem I have heard that was worse was when Carl Lewis sang the US anthem at that basketball game a few years back. Well...Rosanne too, but you get the point. The Canadian anthem was butchered, and I can't even blame Americans. She is from Quebec.

And as for Perreault and Phoenix...Was it not them who waived Danny Briere 6 years ago? Oh, and was it not the other 29 teams that passed on him? Hockey people are so smart about 10% of the time.

Jovo was Pronger's replacement. Perreault was the original Coyote rep. Picked ahead of Jovo. Someone thought he should be there. Guess they needed a faceoff guy.
And not to beat Perreault to death, but the Canucks thought about him in the summer. They almost signed him, but decided not to because he was injured during the off season, and went for Chouinard instead. Hmmm...bad move. There was some interest in him...just not enough to sign him while injured.

But yeah...an all Star?? No.

I've just seen the highlights on nhl.com... Only 6 minutes... But man it was 6 hard minutes! I was really bored seeing such a pathetic play, and such ridiculous jerseys

So congrats to all those who succeeded watching the full game, i doubt i would have do so...

The ratings for the game are in. Down 76 percent. Link

Sounds logical, as it's a non-event.

However, i really wonder why nhl.com shows those so poor results... Are they proud of such a shame?

The general opinion from everyone I heard talk about it over the weekend's games (I spend most of Sundays watching games from Friday/Saturday) was that it was a total embarrassment and something has to be done, but I doubt anything actually will be. I expect this to be swept right under the rug and ignored like all the games' real problems while silly things like the existence of ties are acted upon.