NHL’s Last Regular Season Day Tells Truth About Its Status on U.S. TV

April 11th, 2010 by Steve Thompson Leave a reply »
In a year when the NHL was told that over one third of its revenue comes from Canada, the last day of the regular season told the story of the league in the United States.

NBC, which holds the rights to broadcast the league nationally, chose to broadcast a meaningless game from noon to three o'clock featuring two teams that had already clinched their playoff positions, Washington and Boston.

Aside from Alexander Ovechkin trying to win the Maurice Richard Trophy, the game meant nothing.

Meanwhile there were four games, Los Angeles-Colorado, Detroit-Chicago, Buffalo-New Jersey, and most significantly, New York Rangers-Philadelphia, that had playoff implications.

The Ranger-Flyer game was a winner-take-all situation, in which the winner became the last playoff team and the loser went home.

It was played with exciting Stanley Cup playoff intensity, and was won by Philadelphia in a shoot-out 2-1.

But instead of the NHL showcasing this game on national American television, they were forced to air it on the limited NHL network.

This is typical of the disrespect and low status hockey has in the United State ...

Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
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