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Heidi Heidi Heidi.... Hosed.
May. 20th, 2007 12:52 pmTalk about gettin' no respect at all.
It's bad enough that NBC bullied its way into getting a desperate post-lockout NHL to agree to a deal where they show only the games the network wants and then forces those games into the times the network wants, thus creating the interesting spectacle of "Hockey Night in Canada" beginning at 11 a.m. on the West Coast yesterday.
So the game they did shoehorn into a Saturday afternoon instead of showing it when it belonged by pre-empting a full slate of Saturday night NBC reruns? It went into oooooovertimmmmme, as more than half of Ottawa-Buffalo games typically do.
Everywhere but Western New York, NBC cut away on account of its obligation to cover the Preakness. But not for the race itself- the hockey game was over long before THAT began. No, it was so the network could spend a whole hour ahead of it, in the words of my Friend Jenn (far better than any I could create), "pre-empt[ing] overtime playoff hockey for interviews with freakishly short men."
Making it even worse? This wasn't a blame-the-lackey-in-the-control-room move like NBC's infamous Heidi incident of 1968, nor a computer glitch like so many we're used to here in the new provinces of Timewarnerstan. No, this was completely premeditated, as noted in our local paper's pregame writeup of the NBC coverage:
Channel 2 General Manager Jim Toellner had to make contingency plans with NBC in case today’s game goes into double overtime, which would interfere with NBC’s Preakness coverage. Toellner said Channel 2 would stay with the game and try to run the race live if there is a break in the action or on tape when there is a break. He also is seeking NBC’s permission to carry the race live on the station’s Weather Plus channel. Buffalo fans who have left the area should head to Versus if the game goes to overtime.
Wow. What a way to attract fans- by giving them an exciting, well-played nail biter and then dropping it like a stone in favor of horse racing, which might be the only sport dying even faster than hockey on the US sports scene.
Can you imagine the Heidi-ish uproar if they'd done this to a regular season baseball game? Or even a pre-season NFL game? As of this writing, the only online periodical to even notice the Heidi parallel is, what else?, the Toronto Star.
Sigh. It's bad enough we lost, but it makes it even worse realizing nobody in my country even cares.
----
And now, to recapture the interest of most of the reading audience, I present this news bulletin from the far more important world of auto racing:
AT&T Wins Injunction vs. NASCAR
The actual story, it turns out, is more about the business of branding, which from the look of the cars and uniforms is all Neckcar is really about, anyway; but when I first saw the link to the story, I was expecting to find that the drivers were violating an old Bell Labs patent on high-speed particles being accelerated in a counterclockwise direction.
----
Detroit-Anaheim starts in a little over an hour. I just hope they keep it to 60 minutes; who knows, there could be a celebrity poker tournament or a Ron Popeil infomercial scheduled to begin at 5:P
It's bad enough that NBC bullied its way into getting a desperate post-lockout NHL to agree to a deal where they show only the games the network wants and then forces those games into the times the network wants, thus creating the interesting spectacle of "Hockey Night in Canada" beginning at 11 a.m. on the West Coast yesterday.
So the game they did shoehorn into a Saturday afternoon instead of showing it when it belonged by pre-empting a full slate of Saturday night NBC reruns? It went into oooooovertimmmmme, as more than half of Ottawa-Buffalo games typically do.
Everywhere but Western New York, NBC cut away on account of its obligation to cover the Preakness. But not for the race itself- the hockey game was over long before THAT began. No, it was so the network could spend a whole hour ahead of it, in the words of my Friend Jenn (far better than any I could create), "pre-empt[ing] overtime playoff hockey for interviews with freakishly short men."
Making it even worse? This wasn't a blame-the-lackey-in-the-control-room move like NBC's infamous Heidi incident of 1968, nor a computer glitch like so many we're used to here in the new provinces of Timewarnerstan. No, this was completely premeditated, as noted in our local paper's pregame writeup of the NBC coverage:
Channel 2 General Manager Jim Toellner had to make contingency plans with NBC in case today’s game goes into double overtime, which would interfere with NBC’s Preakness coverage. Toellner said Channel 2 would stay with the game and try to run the race live if there is a break in the action or on tape when there is a break. He also is seeking NBC’s permission to carry the race live on the station’s Weather Plus channel. Buffalo fans who have left the area should head to Versus if the game goes to overtime.
Wow. What a way to attract fans- by giving them an exciting, well-played nail biter and then dropping it like a stone in favor of horse racing, which might be the only sport dying even faster than hockey on the US sports scene.
Can you imagine the Heidi-ish uproar if they'd done this to a regular season baseball game? Or even a pre-season NFL game? As of this writing, the only online periodical to even notice the Heidi parallel is, what else?, the Toronto Star.
Sigh. It's bad enough we lost, but it makes it even worse realizing nobody in my country even cares.
----
And now, to recapture the interest of most of the reading audience, I present this news bulletin from the far more important world of auto racing:
AT&T Wins Injunction vs. NASCAR
The actual story, it turns out, is more about the business of branding, which from the look of the cars and uniforms is all Neckcar is really about, anyway; but when I first saw the link to the story, I was expecting to find that the drivers were violating an old Bell Labs patent on high-speed particles being accelerated in a counterclockwise direction.
----
Detroit-Anaheim starts in a little over an hour. I just hope they keep it to 60 minutes; who knows, there could be a celebrity poker tournament or a Ron Popeil infomercial scheduled to begin at 5:P