Yeah, NBCSN is broadcasting the heavy load of NHL that ESPN would have had 15-20 years ago. It's just not called ESPN. And since so many people have gone sour on ESPN for obsessing over LeBron, Tebow, and Embracing Debate, shouldn't that be a positive?

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I think you do what you have to do to be on ESPN. It's just too much free marketing to pass up on

"ESPN sucks. Everyone should be on it!"

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Im not an ESPN sucks guy

But ESPN does suck.

So what do you suggest the NHL should have done in a situation where ESPN did not want them? play there for free? That's what they had to do with NBC because they couldn't even get games on ABC under the deal Shapiro offered them. (They did get rights fees from OLN-->Versus.)

The league is doing fine without the Booyahs behind them. They got a healthy TV contract from NBC, an even better one from Rogers, and business has never been better. I don't think

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ESPNBA

Even Sprotscenter is intolerable any more.

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I mean, look, I loved the National Hockey Night theme song, too, but the NHL didn't have a choice. They've made the most out of the corner they were put into/backed themselves into.

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Not at marketing


We've had this discussion before. I guess they had no legit option to be on ESPN. I think they'd be more popular if they were.

ESPN would have a field day with all this scoring and young stars emerging

Perhaps they would have, but there are only so many hours in a field day, and I just can't see them taking time away from LeBron, Tebow, Yankees/Red Sox, and all things NFL in order to focus on the NHL's wave of generational talent. (ESPN: the other NFL Network.) The irony, of course, is that the people who work in Bristol, air staff and 9-to-5ers alike, are all big hockey fans, growing up as they did in the Northeast where hockey is firmly embedded in the culture.

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The NHL has gotta love having the 3 teams from the 3 largest cities in the USA in the final 4, along with the most storied franchise in the league. Who misses Phoenix & the other teams from cities in the Southeast who don't deserve an NHL franchise? No one.

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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

You know, Scorehead, I was thinking, you expressed that the NHL shouldn't be in Nashville, Carolina, Dallas, Tampa Bay, etc., but...haven't you also expressed a desire to leave Illinois and never look back, moving to a state with a low cost of living such as Tennessee or North Carolina? I'm not saying you can't reconcile your own life with the NHL's footprint, but don't you see that that kind of fetishization of the New South is part of the problem?

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I just don't see how they can't coax a broadcast partner into a Sunday night game knowing you would have the Chicago market on lockdown and that they have become trendy in LA.

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

Because even with hockey booming as it is, it's still not going to be as popular as whatever mass-market tripe NBC shows on Sunday nights when football's off. I don't know what they show. I'm guessing The Voice or something.

The whole playoff schedule is done at the whims of NBC, much to the chagrin of the Canadian rightsholders. RDS and the CBC were pretty sour about having to show a Canadiens game on Saturday afternoon and not the customary Saturday night.

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Saturday night is a dead zone on TV. NBC won't even broadcast a game on that night?

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I guess not.

Maybe things will be different next year. I believe Rogers is paying more for the NHL than Comcast is, so maybe they'll be able to dictate the terms a little more and force some games on Saturday nights.

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If things hold up and I have to hear Boomer Esiason and Dan McNeil go full homer on the Score, I may vomit from my eyes and ears.

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