Back-To-Back Games Gives NBC, NHL Desired Boost In Viewership

NBC's Pens-Red Wings Game Two Ranks Sixth For Week In Primetime For Adults 18-49

SOLID START: NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman yesterday appeared on Toronto's The Fan 590-AM, where he discussed scheduling Games One and Two of the Stanley Cup Finals on back-to-back nights. Bettman: "We did (the schedule) and television accommodated us. We decided a year ago, because when you get to this time of the year and there's so much other sports going on and you're getting to the fourth round, I wanted to see if we could get the … Finals off to an intense start." Bettman said the ratings for the first two games on NBC are the “biggest numbers we've seen in a decade.” Bettman: "We may have put ourselves in a new situation. It looks like it worked really well" (The Fan 590-AM, 6/1). YAHOO SPORTS' Greg Wyshynski wrote while Stanley Cup Finals ratings are "low by comparison to, say, the NBA playoffs," the NHL and NBC have "nothing to be ashamed about." The league and the net "launched the Finals as well as they could before Versus takes the helm" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 6/1). In Albany, Pete Dougherty wrote the early ratings for the Finals are "encouraging." But what eventually will "determine the television success of the Finals is the overall series average, and that could be doomed if the Red Wings win the next two games -- both on Versus" (TIMESUNION.com, 6/1).

BENDING, NOT BREAKING? The NHL is not suspending Penguins C Evgeni Malkin for getting into a fight with Red Wings LW Henrik Zetterberg in the closing seconds of Game Two despite rules that state a suspension should be mandated, and ESPN's Tony Kornheiser said, "They didn't do this so much for Malkin and this rule as to keep Malkin on TV." Kornheiser: "Their ratings are up. They don't want Pittsburgh to lose 4-0. They want Pittsburgh at full strength. They want a Game Five, they want a Game Six, they want a Game Seven." ESPN's Michael Wilbon said by not suspending Malkin, NHL Senior Exec VP/Hockey Operations Colin Campbell is sending a "common sense message, that we don't have to hide behind the letter of the law" ("PTI," ESPN, 6/1).

HOCKEY EVERYWHERE: YAHOO SPORTS' Wyshynski noted at the Omni William Penn Hotel, the NHL's hotel HQs in Pittsburgh, Versus has "miraculously replaced" WPCW-CW on the hotel's channel lineup. The NHL Network also has replaced Cartoon Network at the hotel, while the hotel's Channel 33 "has been converted to a series of commercials for The NHL Network, too." Wyshynski wrote of the changes, "We're all so quick to point out what the NHL fails to do sometimes that we ourselves fail to appreciate when it does something well" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 6/1).

NOTES: Buffalo's WGRZ-NBC feed is available in certain parts of Ontario, and the TORONTO STAR's Chris Zelkovich wrote NBC analyst Pierre McGuire should "stop calling analyst Ed Olczyk 'Edso' during the broadcast," as it "sounds like high school" (THESTAR.com, 6/1)....The CBC earned 1.875 million viewers for Game Two of the Finals, up from 1.869 million last year. Game One on the net earned 1.7 million viewers, down from 2.1 million last year (CP, 6/1).

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