Hockey only makes national news now when something goes wrong. Except when the playoffs arrive and the NHL gets on the major American networks. Then everything goes great. At least, that is, so long as their playoff games don't go into overtime and there aren't horse races to compete with. Then, well, not so much.
In a move of infuriating disrespect to hockey fans, NBC chose to cut off their overtime broadcast of the Buffalo Sabres and the Ottawa Senators playoff game so we could be sure to hear more about the upcoming Preakness race.
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| Who won the game? Hope you had Versus or like horse racing. (Getty Images) |
At least NBC made sure the remainder of the overtime game was shown on Versus. Wait, where? If you gave me 10 minutes and I didn't have the pressure of trying to find my favorite team on television (while they were in overtime, mind you) I'd probably be able to find the game on Versus. And I still wouldn't guarantee it. But have you ever tried to work the remote when time is of the essence and you absolutely have to change the channel? I have, and it wasn't pretty.
Last spring my DVR messed up a recording and my wife came outside to find me curled up into the fetal position cursing my set-top box. This was during a Tennessee-Alabama basketball game that went to overtime. Unfortunately for me, my wife had set the DVR to record Medium. (Just a question, do men watch Medium? I know it's popular to claim that Grey's Anatomy is only watched by women, but I know several guys who watch this show. But Medium? Not a single one.)
This switch and my subsequent panicked channel-changing attempts caused my DVR to start smoking. Eventually, after much cursing, I found the game again, but not before I felt like I was personally trying to execute the two-minute offense in a driving snowstorm in a January NFL football game at Lambeau Field while playing without a helmet.
But imagine if you didn't have Versus. Oh man, even thinking about this makes me queasy. If this happened to one of my teams, I wouldn't be satisfied until the executive responsible for this decision was slowly cooked over a roaring flame. Even then I wouldn't be satisfied, but would hope that the deterrence factor, similar to the death penalty proponent argument, would ensure that no game ever got switched while it was still undecided for the rest of television history.
But the more I think about this the more shocked I am by this decision. All my life I've heard about the Heidi fiasco that occurred 11 years before I was born. I think my dad is still angry about this. For the unaware, on Nov. 17, 1968, NBC cut away from a New York Jets-Oakland Raiders game because they had a contractual obligation to carry Heidi on television. The Jets were leading 32-29 with only 65 seconds left in the game. NBC switched, and remarkably the Raiders scored two touchdowns in less than nine seconds and went on to win the game 43-32. As soon as the game switched to Heidi, bedlam ensued. Telephone lines lit up across the country. Angry viewers flooded NBC with telephone calls and some even resorted to calling the police.
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| Horse racing > Hockey overtime (Getty Images) |
In fact, imagine, for just a moment, what would have happened if a major network had cut off overtime coverage of a baseball, football or basketball playoff game in today's media-saturated culture. We're talking a Don Imus-esque implosion here. It's altogether possible several major executives would get fired and for days and days this is all anyone would talk about. Yet all this talk would do nothing to assuage the anger. So now, for just a moment, I want you to pause and think about how angry you would be if your team's game got preempted for pre-game coverage of a horse race.
Yeah, thought so.
But 39 years later, here we go again. See, I'm not even a hockey fan and I'm sympathetic to the plight of hockey fans. The NHL has become the ugly guy who somehow managed to pull the hot girlfriend (national television coverage) by giving up all self-respect. Only the hot girlfriend is slowly finding out what she can get away with in this relationship and still not be dumped. Which is basically everything. We're in the midst of a long slog down the self-respect trail. Pretty soon Gary Bettman is going to be telephoning individual hockey fans to ask what time would be best for them to watch NHL games.
As a sports fan I can't stand for this decision. (And I promise this column has nothing at all to do with the fact that I'm currently vacationing in South Carolina with a house full of my wife's Michigan family who live and bleed hockey.) But marshalling outrage in today's media requires multiple days of indignation to keep the story fresh. So here are seven ideas (one for each day of the upcoming week) for creative ways hockey fans can protest this decision:
