He Taketh Away
I hope you gorged yourself on hockey yesterday, because there’s only one NHL game on tap for tonight.
Yesterday saw three fights. Ben Eager joined Matt Barnaby and Ian Laperriere atop the leaders list, but he might not be all too happy about “earning” that FM. Eager went after Chris Thorburn, but never really got his fight on as the linesmen never let it go. Eager picked up an instigator for his actions, his third of the season, which means he also picks up an automatic one-game suspension.
The videos page is updated with that fight and the other two of the day, including the unexpected Marleau-Ballard scrap.
Some Sunday reading:
The National Post has a good article about the longevity of Brendan Shanahan
Inside Bay Area: Hockey cop McSorley lends insight to Sharks TV (via insane HDIC liveblogger Alanah)
Mike Chen had some thoughts about NBC first broadcast of the season, including this quotes from Brett Hull:
On Jarko Ruutu: “Here’s a typical play by a typical player in the NHL. Jarko Ruutu refuses to drop his gloves…he’s got one goal in 40 games. It’s players like that we have to weed out of the league.”
Some thoughts from me about NBC:
Shortly before the Eager-Thorburn fight NBC flashbacked to the Fedoruk–Boogaard fight earlier this season, when Boogey broke the Fridge’s face and gave him some mid-season time off. During the clip Ed Olczyk said Fedoruk’s not a heavy. That’s obviously not the case, but not a big deal IMO. Olczyk then says Boogey may be the toughest in the league. Perfect phrasing because it says he’s one of the best, but with room for disagreement, which is when Pierre Maguire took the opportunity to say Laraque has buckled him. Anyone who’s downloaded a clip from this site knows Doc Emrick is on his fighting game, and that was the broadcasting team for the Pens-Flyers game. So NBC’s flashbacking to fights, then Olczyk’s saying they’ve got to let them go during Eager-Thorburn. There’s little doubt fans of this site had much to complain about here.
NBC had a good production last season and this year it’s looking even better.
Three more regular season weekends are being broadcast by NBC this season compared to 2005-06 (and there will be more playoff games broadcast as well). The NHL’s deal with NBC expires at the end of the season, but the rumors are that NBC wants to renew the deal through the 2010 Vancouver Olympics with an increase in number of games again.
Financial aspects of the deal aside, it looks like the NHL might have found a real national broadcast home in the States after bouncing around over much of the last decade.
