Playoffs Boost TV Ratings, Fuel Interest In Resurgent NHL
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NHL Highlights Making Way To Top
Of ESPN's "SportsCenter" Broadcasts |
The presence of Stanley Cup playoffs highlights near the top of ESPN's “SportsCenter” broadcasts, after a “recent past where NHL highlights might be sequestered to the hour-long show’s final five minutes," says something, according to Adam Thompson of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. So too does ESPN tapping the CBC’s Don Cherry to provide analysis on “SportsCenter” for the duration of the playoffs, whose ratings on both NBC and Versus “continue to climb.” Thompson wrote people are “starting to watch again, and they should be.” The game is as “fast and fun as it’s been in years, and this year’s playoffs have made good use of its young stars.” That this “renaissance is happening now comes after a lost decade and change.” The league still has a “laundry list of problems, from its placement on the still-obscure Versus to its continuing inability to penetrate much of the Sun Belt.” The NHL’s Penguins-Sabres Amp Energy Winter Classic outdoor game on New Year’s Day “lived up to the hype -- but the burden remains for the league to prove that wasn’t a one-off success.” The league and the NHLPA “ought to swallow their pride, retreat from a few markets that have consistently failed to gain traction -- the NHL remains an afterthought in Nashville and South Florida -- and, for the love of all things decent, permanently table any talk of further expansion to hockey hinterlands like [K.C.] and Las Vegas.” A game “already taking positive steps would look even better with a more concentrated talent pool free of talent-poor fourth-liners.” Thompson: “All that said, the present game looks great” (WSJ.com, 5/8).
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