Lance Armstrong Is A Bit Miffed At Versus

Cycling is a sport too! Just ask Lance Armstrong, who was rather angry last night at Versus contractual obligation to cut off off last night when Versus cut away from the last mile of the Tour of California in order to show hockey "pre-game."

Last night, Armstrong tweeted: "Who's the dumbass @versustv that cut off @AmgenTourofCali coverage w/ a mile to go for pregame hockey?? #pathetic"

Now it is important to note that they encouraged all their viewers to go on their website to watch the end of the race, and they did stress this multiple times over a period of 10 minutes, so viewers could be prepared. And while I certainly sympathize for the 5 people that were actually watching that that could not see it on their computer for whatever reason, Versus does have contract obligations to switch to hockey at 7:00. In fact, in an irony, before Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Versus ran overtime with the cycling race, showing post-race interviews, leaving Flyers fans fuming with a crawl saying that coverage of the game coming up next and no sign to when cycling would end. The cycling race did end before the puck drop and no one missed anything, but Versus surely got a lot of hate mail from hockey fans, and naturally, since the NHL is Versus' most precious commodity, they have started taken those contract obligations more seriously now.

Per Travis Hughes of SB Nation, there is potential for another overrun before tomorrow's Flyers-Habs Game 3 and it will be interesting to see how Versus handles the potential of another overrun. Do they stick with the contract, or will a network whose initial main draw was cycling and showing Lance Armstrong win his Tour de Frances go back to their roots and leave hockey fans in the dark? If that is the case, expect me to make some slight alterations to Lance Armstrong's tweet.