Sunday, May 20, 2007

Off To The Races


By Eric Redner
The Phanatic Magazine

Yesterday I enjoyed my first Saturday off in forever and I felt horrible. I had several things I wanted to accomplish yesterday, but since I wasn't up for it I decided to just relax and watch Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals.

And what happens?

Just as the game goes to overtime, NBC cuts to the Preakness.

Now I'm not much of a horse racing fan, but I understand why the network cut to the middle portion of the immensely popular Triple Crown races. Plus, the race yesterday was pretty exciting to watch, all one minute and 53 seconds of it.

But, as a hockey fan only one statement comes to mind: What is going on withthe NHL?

Why couldn't the league and NBC schedule the game to start at 7:00 or 7:30? That way, the race would be over with and NBC could have broadcast the game in full. All that was scheduled for the night was Dateline and two hours of Law &Order (which is one of those shows that you can watch anytime of the day it seems).

However, instead of watching overtime playoff hockey, for over a full hour before the race I was treated to several talking heads discussing the various horses, the 10-minute rain storm that hit the area, and the possibility of Street Sense taking the Triple Crown.

By the way, the race didn't go off until around 6:20, fully an hour after Daniel Alfredsson scored to kick out the Sabres and lead Ottawa to its first Stanley Cup appearance, thank God cause I hate the Sabres.

I was informed by a friend online that the game was being shifted to theVersus network, but while some people in the area got to watch it, my area did not receive the feed.

Needless to say, I wrote an email to NBC to complain about the situation -- not that it will change anything, just needed to vent to someone.

It's things like this that are the reason why the NHL will always be a distant fourth in the Big Four of sports in America, sixth if you want to count golf and NASCAR.

I only hope this doesn't happen in the Stanley Cup finals -- not that many people in the area will be watching it anyway.

3 comments:

Anthony said...

They didn't cut to the Preakness, they cut to pre-race coverage, which was a bad idea.
There was still an hour to go before the race, and they should have stayed with the hockey game until its completion.

No pre-game or pre-race show should take precedent over any actual contest.

Anonymous said...

atta boy! way to stick a boot up the peacock's ass!

Anonymous said...

Anthony did you read the whole article, he mentions in there that for over an hour there was pre-race coverage.