New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and a Canadian team in its final four. How will they showcase themselves to the casual audience for this unique opportunity to gain fandom?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

10:00 pm (eastern) starts for the Hawks/whoever and noon on Saturday/Sunday for the Eastern teams.....because Bettman.

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They are obviously fixing the playoffs.

Outdoor Life Network bosses don't want a small market matchup.

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You know that's coming

Probably a big fight followed by suspensions

closely called games to slow down offense

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Its*

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-- source

Speaking of Bettman, if the NHL is smart they will recruit John McDonough as the next Commissioner.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

3 original six teams in the final four.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Won't ever waste no time on the played out ego
So here's Busta Rhymes with the, Scenario

[Verse Five: Busta Rhymes]

Watch, as I combine all the juice from the mind
Heel up, reel up, bring it back, come rewind
Powerful impact BOOM! from the cannon
Not braggin, try to read my mind just imagine
Vo-cab-u-lary's necessary
When diggin into my library
Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!
Eating ayea toadstool like the one Peter Tosh-a
Uh, uh uhh, alone with the track man
Uh, pardon me, uhh, as I come back
As I did it yo I heard you beg your pardon
When I travel to the Sun I roll with the squadron
RRRRRROAW RRRRRRROAW like a dungeon dragon
Change your little drawers cause your pants are saggin
Try to step to this, I will, fits you in a turban
And had you smellin right, like some old stale urine
Checkady-choco, the chocolate chicken
The rear cock diesel, for chicks they were kickin
Yo, bustin out before the Busta bust a nut the rhyme
the rhythm is in sync (UHH!) the rhymes are on time (TIME!)
Rippin up this dance just like a radio
Observe the vibe and check out the scenario!!
[chorus starts] Yeah, my man motherfucker!

Thought I was going to read a story about the NBA and MLB both going on strike when I clicked on this...

Wishful thinking...

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

Which game is on the OWN network? and Will Oprah do a feature segment on Kaner?

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

The NHL best case scenario is that anything south of the Canadian border and west of the Mississippi River falls into the ocean and they can have a US and Canada conference.

I really want to see a Chicago and Montreal series. Revenge for '71. That said, any time you can beat a New York team, its a good thing.

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Anaheim has to drop out before we can call this a best-case scenario. They're ratings death: responsible for the worst prime-time ratings in the history of American television.

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So, you get a matchup of Chicago and Los Angeles in a conference championship game on a weekend. That seems like a great scenario. Who wouldn't want to watch some prime time hockey. Even if you start it at 6-7 Central that is still a late afternoon for the people on the west coast to enjoy after a day of doing what they do.

The NHL puts it at 2 locally and noon on the west coast.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Its not a surprise. Nothing is a surprise with this league. On M&H this morning, they discussed how the Blackhawks organization used to be run. When Rocky took over, there was no business organization. Can you imagine that in today's sports landscape? I can. I image its the same problem at the NHL level. They probably don't have or don't have the right type of business organization. I'm sure when McDonough takes over as the commissioner, he will do the same thing he did with the Blackhawks.

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Blame the rightsholder. NBC only puts the NHL in primetime when it's the Stanley Cup Final, and they shunt two of the minimum four games to cable. They could have put it on NBCSN, but then people would have bitched about not putting a marquee matchup on the big network. It's a no-win.

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Why blame NBC? The NHL used to be contracted with ESPN for the love of god. Now they can't command diddly squat.

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What are you talking about? The contract with ESPN relegated them to ESPN2 more often than not when basketball, baseball, or poker were on. Games on ABC were even rarer than games on NBC. The contract ESPN offered the league after the lockout was an insult and would have marginalized hockey even further than it already had been by 2004 (they cancelled NHL2Night at the end of the year whether hockey was coming back or not). Mark Shapiro despised hockey and wanted the league off his channels so that he could have more basketball and original programming. Bettman didn't have a choice but to go to Comcast and NBC (who, by his good fortune, would merge). It's all there in the book.

Even if they can't swing a Sunday night third-round game between non-East-Coast teams, the NHL has more sway with NBC now than they would have had with ESPN.

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Here is the point I am trying to make. They had a golden opportunity with ESPN and the NHL blew it. Actually, they have had several opportunities with other major brands, like Fox and Nike, and they blew those too. ESPN "The Ocho" is still ESPN. ESPN also had something that NBC didn't, radio coverage. I can't pick up any of the Stanley Cup games in my car. That's additional ad revenue. I can pick up baseball, football and basketball.

Let's not forget that before NBC decided to create their own competing sports station, the NHL sat on Versus. Is it better now? Sure. But what I am saying is that if they had a real business organization up there, they could have swayed / had leverage on Shapiro and maintained a contract with ESPN or won a better contract than what they have today. That said, being on CNBC with a TV guide that still reads "American Greed" is horribly embarrassing. Horribly. But its what we have to live with.

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What was their golden opportunity? Being treated as the bastard son for the right to say they were on ESPN? So was arena football. It wasn't a real offer. Unless you think a 75% cut in rights fees is a real offer, I don't know.

The NHL is contracted with Reebok/Adidas, just like the NBA.

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So let's start the eastern conference finals on a Saturday at noon...

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants

Their golden opportunity was to use ESPN to grow their brand. Market the game. I realize it will always struggle some with being a niche sport, but look at how popular the Blackhawks have gotten (granted the winning helps) with people who are out of the demographic and never knew much about hockey. That was what I thought ESPN could have brought the league. My assumption is that they didn't have the right type of business organization in place, if any organization at all, that could leverage the ESPN brand.

The Blackhawks are proving you can market hockey, even though half the players on the team can barely speak English and the other half look like ogres.

The NHL can't even put a story together. Where was the buildup for this past Olympics? I should have seen and heard non-stop advertising about the US team getting revenge against Canada from four years back.

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ESPN didn't do anything to market the NHL when they had all four leagues + tennis + golf + poker. Why would that have changed? You're talking about a hypothetical scenario in which the guy in charge of ESPN didn't want hockey off his channel. It just wasn't going to happen. They had to go.

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I'm not saying that ESPN is responsible for marketing the NHL. The NHL is responsible for marketing the NHL. ESPN just gives them the visibility to succeed. ESPN would have wanted them more if they could have done better than the half-ass job they did in the past 15 years.

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It seemed like the NHL was on every day back on ESPN. There'd always be a late game on with Selanne, Kariya, Bure, Sakic, Forsberg, Gretsky, or Fleury.

What the fuck NBC!?? Why would you start the game the exact same time as the Chicago Fire - Sporting KC MLS game? This is some fucking bullshit!

Yeah, that was when they didn't have the NBA on Wednesdays and Fridays, and before they'd duped a nation of simpletons into watching poker on TV. By the end of the contract they would just have a game or maybe two per week on ESPN2.

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Plenty of hockey on now with 215 and 220. I am ok not having to watch ESPN.

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Hawaii (fuck) You