The Puck Stops Here

CBC pays the most for NHL TV coverage and delivers the biggest audience with their Canadian coverage. On Saturdays, they would like to see evening games for Hockey Night In Canada. NBC holds the American TV rights and would like afternoon games on Saturdays. The NHL has chosen to support NBC with afternoon games. That includes yesterdays, semifinal game where Ottawa beat Buffalo to win their way to the finals. However, NBC was unwilling to give good coverage to the game. When it went to overtime, NBC cut away to go to the pre-race talk about the Preakness Stakes horse race. This forced the overtime coverage onto Versus the NHL's American cable network, which is not shown in nearly as many homes as NBC. The horse race had not even started, but the pre-race talk pre-empted hockey. If the NHL is going to overlook the Canadian market for the American one, they should at least have support of the American broadcasters, but clearly they do not. The NHL has real problems if they side with broadcasters that would rather show the pre-race for a horse race then an overtime that determines a Stanley Cup final participant. This kind of short-sighted ridiculousness clearly shows the desperation to break into the US market of Gary Bettman's league. If the NHL bends over backwards to accommodate a TV broadcaster, at the expense of another, they should at least be promised to show the entire game on that broadcaster.