Since Justin is on vacation, not a lot noteworthy has happened in hockey, as the NHL world awaits Steven Stamkos' signing decision. However, since he likes writing about announcing; this article from SB Nation rating local NHL announcing crews would certainly have caught his eye.
Here are the comments about the FlyersCSN announcers:
"Jim Jackson, Keith Jones - Philadelphia Flyers: Keith Jones has become a caricature of the "good Canadian boy" ex-hockey player. On Versus, he's somewhat balanced and talks about things other than physical play.
On the Comcast broadcast, Jones wears his heart on his sleeve. Everything can be improved with toughness and every player having an off night "needs more effort", regardless of the level of effort. "Being more physical" in all aspects of the game is paramount.
Jackson carries a heavy Philadelphia bias and refuses to criticize a Flyer, even when the criticism is obvious."
Now, as some people who read this blog or follow Justin on Twitter know, I'm a Capitals fan. Ranking the team of Beninati and Laughlin as 3 stars is pure insanity, or perhaps he listens to those broadcasts with cotton in his ears. He correctly nails Beninati on the screaming on random plays, but misses how he all too often falls back on his stupid catchphrases and his incessant Comcast promotion. And Laughlin falls back on his hockey player-ese of just attaching "Y's" to every player to serve as a nickname. He also thinks every bad call against the Caps is a conspiracy, and also always has an excuse when the Caps flame out in the playoffs. I deserve a medal for listening to 15 years of these guys doing Capitals games on TV.
Anyway, these lists are always fun for debate as to which crew is the best. My money goes to Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda of the Sharks.
Also, remember to catch Bob Costas and Al Michaels as they work tonight's Mets at Giants game on the MLB Network.
Let's get one thing straight: The Flyers did not deserve to beat the Flames today. They were outplayed and outworked by an inferior hockey team who is ranked 26th in the league in the overall standings.
Let's get another thing straight: The Flyers would have stolen a 2nd point from Calgary anyway, had the officials not made one of their biggest blunders of the season.
When Sean Avery instigated what is now known as the "Avery Rule" back in the 2008 playoffs, did anyone really think we would see it come up again? Maybe the lack of occurrence of the penalty caused the referees to forget what the penalty is for. It certainly is an explanation for calling it when they did.
Follow along with the jump for a complete breakdown of everything regarding this rule and this play.
The following is a collection of History Will Be Made videos from the NHL that were made of the Philadelphia Flyers during the Eastern Conference Finals. The last one is without a doubt the best. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the Flyers making history.
The only thing better than that Richards shortie is seeing it backwards and slo-mo.
Stunning. I know. But it is quite clear that by what the NHL is doing on Saturday, they care much more about NBC and their American audience than CBC and hockey's Canadian audience, even though hockey is a much bigger sport in Canada than it is in the United States. So what has Garry Bettman done this time? Well....Hockey Night In Canada won't exactly be Hockey Night in Canada this Saturday. Instead, it will be Hockey Afternoon In Canada. From The Hockey News.
If there were ever any doubt the NHL has almost no regard for Canadians and the network that broadcasts games to them, let there be doubt no more. The league’s decision to cater to NBC by having Game 4 of the Montreal-Philadelphia Eastern Conference final at 3 p.m. Saturday is nothing short of an outrage.
You see, the Saturday night slot for Hockey Night in Canada is sacrosanct. The last time the league pulled this, in Game 2 of the first round series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Canadiens, CBC lost 800,000 viewers. There are those at CBC who reckon that number will be up well over one million for this one. That’s because Canadiens aren’t hard-wired to watch hockey on a Saturday afternoon and, as it turns out, they won’t all watch it regardless of what time it’s on.
Nice, eh? The league gives priority times to a network that would probably draw about the same numbers as it would if it showed old strongman competitions or tractor pulls at the same time. Meanwhile, people in British Columbia get treated to Hockey Morning in Canada, all in the name of catering to American viewers. To add insult to injury, NBC had apparently originally planned to not air any of the games in Montreal during the playoffs, but has since backtracked on that decision.
And don’t think the people at the CBC aren’t incensed at how they’ve essentially been told by the NHL they’re second-class citizens. You’d think the NHL would realize the CBC recoups that $110 million it gives the league with ad revenues, but again, you’d be wrong. Cutting out that many viewers by putting the game on in the afternoon puts a serious dent in the rates CBC can charge advertisers, so it makes far less money. And if you think the NHL will make that up with increased revenues from advertisers on NBC, you’re dreaming.
And when it comes to league-wide hockey-related revenues, something that should get the league’s attention, just how many more $10 beers does the NHL think it’s going to sell by putting a game on at 3 p.m. as opposed to 7 p.m.?
When games are played in Montreal, traditionally Reseau des Sports gets first priority in terms of camera positioning, intermission guests and access to the teams. CBC is second and NBC is third. In all other Canadian cities, CBC gets top priority and in all American cities, top priority goes to NBC, with CBC second in the pecking order.
Some at CBC are anxious to see what the pecking order will be for Saturday’s game. Chances are, though, they’ll show up at the rink on Saturday to find out the league is rolling out a red carpet and hiring a marching band for NBC and they’ll have to be pleased with getting Ryan O’Byrne as an intermission guest.
I can't say I disagree with anything here. CBC has been partners with the NHL since the days of yore and they completely disregard them for a network that has proven countless times that it does not give two shits about hockey. But alas, that is Gary Bettman and his hard on for the United States. After all, since when has Gary Bettman ever cared about that huge island landmass northeast of the United States?
I can rant about this all day long and you will roll your eyes and think of me as nothing but a stereotypical tin-foil hatty whiny Flyers fan. Instead, I will just show you the video and the rule that says Dan Carcillo should not have been suspended for what happened in this video.
Rule 60.4 Match Penalty: "When, in the opinion of the Referee, a player attempts to or deliberately injures an opponent while carrying or holding any part of his stick above the shoulders of the opponent, the Referee shall assess a match penalty to the offending player."
Dan Carcillo apologized intensely to Clarkson immediately after the high stick. Not 5 minutes after, but immediately after as the two were still dancing on the ice. It was an accident. As the rule states above, you can only get a match penalty if there is a deliberate attempt to injure someone. As you can clearly see with the video and as evidenced by the immediate apology, Carbomb had absolutely 0 intent to injure in that sequence. Now the refs did not know that during the game so I can't fault them that much for sending him off during the game, but really, when you are ruling it a suspension for a deliberate attempt to injure, should not you take into consideration the fact that there was an immediate apology??? This is not a suspension for a high stick in the face. This is a suspension for being a repeat offender in orange. Sigh. Colin Campbell's incompetency strikes again.
Click for larger. The puck is at least 1/8 an inch over the line! It should be clear from this picture and everyone that is not blind that this is a goal. The puck was knocked into the net by Kimmo Timonen for the Flyers goal to bring them within 1 in the 3rd period of what was before a 2-0 hockey game. Yet after looking at it for over 5 minutes, the league concluded that the puck was not over the line. Click for larger and clearer if you must.
Though that was not the only crime by NHL referees against the Flyers. Consider this incident, while ignoring the idiotic commentary of from Garry Galley who would not know textbook boarding if right above the boarding there was a huge neon sign saying "THIS IS WHAT BOARDING LOOKS LIKE, RECOGNIZE IT YOU DUMB TWIT"
Is there any intelligent hockey fan that can tell you that that was not boarding. And to Galley's point that you can't trust a guy not to hit you, well, you can't trust that, but you should be able to trust that someone is not going to send you flying 4 feet headfirst into the boards, that's for sure. And for the ignorant dingbats who think that Gagne may have embellished.......this is a man that has had 3 concussions in his career. Why would he send himself flying head first into the boards like that???
All in all, that was not called, but 5 minutes for fighting in Gagne were. Oh, and 2 minutes for Gagne for instigating. And another 2 for something about instigating with a face shield. And a 10-minute misconduct. What did Volchenkov get? 2 minutes for roughing for that scrum. And I am not even going to blame Gagne. The refs missed a blatant elbow call earlier in the game by Volchenkov on Carcillo. It had become quite clear that the referees were in no business to call penalties on dirty plays by Senators and seeing as they were not going to stand up for him, Gagne had no choice but to stand up for himself. And I don't even care that he got penalized, he absolutely did the right thing by going after Volchenkov. It resulted in a 7-minute PP for Ottawa (which Philly killed all of, by the way) but I could not be happier for him. It's about time someone on this team stuck up for themselves and it's about damn time we saw some damned emotion out of a team lacking it. They did not convert it, they did not win the game, but if the NHL and the referees are not going to stand up for Simon Gagne, then he had every right to go after Volchenkov like that. And I applaud him for it.
You can call me a whiny Flyers fan all day long and delusionaly discredit everything I am saying because of that, but does any of that change what is so painfully obvious? Can you see for yourselves that the puck was across the line in that picture? Can you see for yourselves the textbook boarding job that Volchenkov did on Gagne? And look, I am not even saying the Flyers would have won that game if not for the refs. They played an inconsistent game and failed to convert on the PP opportunities they did have, but were they given a fair shake in this game? Absolutely not. Do hockey fans in general deserve better than this? Yes they do.
In his game recap at Broad Street Hockey, Geoff Detwiler summed it up the best.
Any casual fan watching this game must have been left asking what is wrong with the NHL. The answer is that games like this are all too common. Before getting all "The NHL hates Philadelphia", know that these sorts of things happen everywhere. Detroit has had some of the most ridiculous calls go against them, and they've surely lost count. Matt Cooke goes unsuspended. Hell, Mike Richards didn't get suspended. Alex Ovechkin is constantly in the middle of these debates. It isn't anything against Philadelphia. It's the NHL.
Update: If you want to watch the highlights of the game which include what the waved off Timonen goal looked like, you can watch the highlights here. That play starts at the 6 minute and 48 second mark. For you curiousity seekers who want to know how Jim Jackson, Bill Clement, and Steve Coates reacted to the Gagne hit, fast forward go to the 4 minute, 25 second mark.
This video would actually be a lot funnier if Tomas Vokoun was not taken off the ice on a stretcher.
Ouch. While the situation is certainly a funny one, I certainly feel bad for Vokoun and wish a speedy recovery for him. I can only imagine how painful that was. Ballard obviously did not see Vokoun or anyone for that matter right in his stick's line of path, but that's what happens when you don't pay attention to what is around you. Good thing there was not a forward wearing less protection than Vokoun, otherwise that situation could have gotten real ugly real fast.
The Philadelphia Flyers will play the Boston Bruins at Fenway Park on January 1, 2010 in the NHL Winter Classic presented by Bridgestone, giving the denziens of the City of Siblingly Love a choice between the hockey game and the Mummers Parade, of which the members of all Mummers clubs said "Oh, fuck!" In other news, man has landed on the moon.
The reason the Flyers were chosen over another Original Six (pre-1967) team, the New York Rangers, and the Washington Capitals was ratings. And since there's no All-Star Game ths year due to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, this will serve as the NHL's centerpiece attraction pre-Olympiad.
Here's the whole schedule, which was announced today (7/15):
Jacques Lemaire was hired to coach the New Jersey Devils. Again. The 1990's live. Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick are doing highlights on SportsCenter on ESPN, the Devils are playing at Brendan Byrne Continental Airlines Arena, the left wing lock (or as it is better known, the neutral zone trap) is legal, and I'm living in the backwater town of Emporia, Virginia, where the most excitng thing there is watcing the delivery truck back into the Winn-Dixie. It's like he never left.
Well, things change. Olbermann and Patrick now do highlights on Football Night in America, the Devils now play a couple blocks away from Newark Penn Station at Prudential Center, the trap play is now illegal in the NHL, I came back to Philadelphia (my birthplace) and Winn-Dixie closed in Emporia when the company went bankrupt, but Lemaire left Jersey a few years ago for the Minnesota Wild. And it's not the first time that a coach has returned to a team he led to past glory.
The most prime example is Billy Martin, who led the New York Yankees four times while Fat George Steinbrenner fired managers on a semiannual basis until Joe Torre settled him down in 1996. And George Halas not only owned the Chicago Bears, but four times coached "Da Bears" ten years at a time. So if the Devils win Lord Stanley's mug next season, don't say that I warned you. In the words of two-time Yankees manager Yogi Berra, it wopuld be deja vu all over again.
Wow!!! I knew that the numbers for Friday night's hockey game was going to be high, perhaps the highest in quite some time, but I never imagined that we would be going back 36 years for this. Holy cow! From NHL.com
Friday night’s deciding Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final on NBC Sports was the most-watched NHL game in 36 years (5/10/73, Stanley Cup Final Game 6 on NBC, Montreal-Chicago, 9.4 million) drawing an average of 8 million viewers. Overall, the series averaged 5.6 million viewers for the five games on NBC, the best since 2002 on ABC (three telecasts, Detroit-Carolina, 5.8 million average viewers).
Friday’s Game 7 earned a 4.3 rating and an 8 share, the best for a series-ending game in six years (6/9/03, Game 7, Anaheim-New Jersey, 4.6/8).
NBC Sports’ Game 7 finished No. 1 for the night in every category including viewership and household ratings.
Just incredible. And so much for the low ratings of having a Game 7 on a Friday and no one watching. Yeah, we were wrong. People watched this game. And just for comparison's sake, according to TVbythenumbers.com, Game 5 of the NBA Finals averaged 9.6 million viewers. And while that is higher, talk about a close gap between 2 sports where such a close gap should not exist. And to think that this game accomplished this feat on a Friday night without the constant promotion from ESPN. Good for hockey and good for the NHL. And it is nice to see that after the nightmare that was the Lockout a few years ago, hockey has rebounded and is now bigger, better, and stronger than ever. Given the same series, I don't think this could have happened in the late 90s and early 2000s before and the year or 2 following the lockout.
And wait, weren't people saying a few weeks ago that no one was going to watch this series because it was a re-match of last year's Stanley Cup??
The time is now! One game to determine will determine who will be the champions of the NHL? Can the Red Wings do it yet again or will Crosby get his name etched on Lord Stanley's Cup for the first time? And just because it's been a habit, tonight's game.....
Game 7: Pittsburgh @ Detroit 8:00 (NBC - Mike Emrick and Ed Olczyk, ItG: Pierre McGuire) (CBC - Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson, SR: Elliotte Friedman and Scott Oake) (RDS)
Enjoy the game and leave comments in the blog below! And if you're Nathan or one of the many aliases, I know all about you and Big Dick Johnson last year, don't come on unless you want to be ridiculed until I see it fit to ban you. And that ridiculing will include me whipping out the video that nobody wants to see! Enough of threatening Nathan though, IT'S TIME FOR GAME 7!!!
Game 5: Pittsburgh @ Detroit 8:00 (NBC - Mike Emrick and Ed Olczyk, ItG: Pierre McGuire) (CBC - Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson, SR: Elliotte Friedman and Scott Oake) (RDS)
Enjoy the game and the blog down below and if you are not a troll named Nathan using some weird and random alias, feel free to leave comments!
Just a bit of a heads-up: I might be a little bit late to the blog today. Just be patient with me, I'll be here ASAP.
Thanks to the Idicoy That Is Gary Bettman, we have The Great Confliction! So join me as I go back and forth and back and forth between games, trying to cover all of the action for you. It should be a great time!
Tonight's games....
Game 4: Detroit @ Pittsburgh 8:00 (Versus - Mike Emrick and Ed Olczyk, SR: Bob Harwood and Christine Simpson) (CBC - Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson, SR: Elliotte Friedman and Scott Oake) (RDS)
Game 1: Orlando @ Los Angeles 9:00 (ABC - Mike Breen, Mark Jackson, and Jeff Van Gundy, SR: Doris Burke)
Enjoy the game and the blog and leave comments! Oh, and if you're a troll named Nathan Brice operating under some weird analyst, don't even bother showing up!
Detroit @ Pittsburgh 8:00 (Versus - Mike Emrick and Ed Olczyk, SR: Bob Harwood and Christine Simpson)) (CBC - Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson, SR: Elliotte Friedman and Scott Oake) (RDS)
Enjoy the game and as long as you're not a troll, feel free to leave comments in the blog down below!
Game 2: Pittsburgh @ Detroit 8:00 (NBC - Mike Emrick and Ed Olczyk, ItG: Pierre McGuire) (CBC - Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson, SR: Elliotte Friedman and Scott Oake) (RDS)
Enjoy the game and as long as you're not a troll named Nathan (or any troll for that matter), leave comments in the blog and bring the funneh!
Update: If I'm not around right on time at 8, don't worry, I might be a few minutes late but I will be here and we will have the live blog. Just be patient. Besides, NBC is like Fox and loads you up on pregame for the first 20 minutes anyway, so it's not like I should be missing anything.
Game 1: Pittsburgh @ Detroit 8:00 (NBC - Mike Emrick and Ed Olczyk, ItG: Pierre McGuire) (CBC - Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson, SR: Elliotte Friedman and Scott Oake) (RDS)
Game 6: Cleveland @ Orlando 8:30 (TNT - Marv Albert and Doug Collins, SR: Craig Sager)
If you choose to take over the live blog, you can watch and blog on whatever you game you want. Enjoy the game (and hopefully the blog) and I'll talk to you later tonight (I'd be shocked if it's after 10:15 PM ET).
Update: It works!!! If they are around tonight, 49er16, Mookie, and/or JamesCraven can take over the live blog from standby mode even if I am not around. As just said above, I have a strong estimate that my return time will be between 10 and 10:15 (I'm seeing a 7:35 showing of Angels & Demons with friends). I will talk to you then!
