Letters to the Editor
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Nichean
While I absolutely agree with your niche analysis of the NHL, I'd also like to add that perhaps the biggest reason for going early to the Preakness this year had a lot to do with last year's Preakness. Anybody remember Barbaro?
You think a network's gonna pass up a chance to masturbate over that story anytime it gets a chance? I don't think so. I went to Churchill for Derby weekend this year, and I swear Barbaro has become more popular than Jesus Christ and bourbon combined. In KENTUCKY!
I suspect that next year, the choice between playoff hockey and the run-up to a horse race that killed a horse -- a few years ago, rather than last year -- will be closer.
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It's like a different country or something
It's funny: Canada's not involved in Iraq; our Christian conservatives are generally not as evil as yours; we have different political problems; I could go on... but it's this column that reminds me just how much of a cultural gulf really exists between Canada and the USA.
I'm sure some people I know watch some American football and can name more than three teams. Plenty watch baseball, at least in part because of the Expos (RIP) and the Blue Jays. I don't think anyone I know personally could give a flying wallenda about the NBA or American college sports.
But hockey... in Canada, resisting hockey is niche. Avoiding hockey is niche. Here in Ottawa, right now, avoiding hockey is damn near impossible. And seeing a parade of Salon sports headlines about basketball... it feels like seeing the whole main Salon page written in Dutch might feel. It's strange and incomprehensible. And I'm not even a sports fan.
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I shouldn't have come back here
art guerilla,
Do not confuse American passive apathy, which the NHL is ineffectively trying to combat, with active hatred of hockey, which is what the American sports media is pandering to.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs bring out three things every year:
1) Jokes about playoff beards
2) Jokes about low TV ratings
3) Hatchet jobs from sports writers who ignore everything good about the game of hockey for the other 364 days a year.
The negative spin on hockey is relentless and overwhelming. And I, for one, am sick and tired of it.
My previous snarky remark to you was for one reason: You're proud of the fact that you hate what I love.
And it disgusts me that the voice of your hate is heard over me.
The underlying message of King's condescending hit piece is that I, as a hockey fan, should swallow my pride. Truth is, it's being shoved down my throat.
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How much is a TV programmer paid?
Here’s a thought, a little late so sue me I'm slow. Since NBC is the only major broadcaster of hockey in the US is it not conceivable that they would have some say in when hockey games are played? In Canada lots of games involving Canadian teams are scheduled for Saturday night (Hockey Night in Canada) so that CBC can show them.
If NBC has some say in when games are played and they know a year in advance when the Preakness is going to be run and they know that games can easily go into overtime why would they schedule the two back to back without any buffer at all?
You gotta imagine there is a person whose job it is to make these programming decisions and if they can't make this simple an assessment then what the hell are they being paid for?
For me it didn’t make a difference since the game was on more than one channel in Canada but I would have freaked if a Canadian network cut into any game that I was watching.