NHL unveils TV schedule; Flyers on Versus nine times, NBC up to four times

I’m glad that we’ll have the home opener on CSN so we can actually get live coverage of the banner raising (cause you know with Versus we’d instead get more Engblom). Also, that October 14 game against Tampa is a “bonus” game, which I think means we’ll still have CSN coverage and Tampa will still have their local coverage, and Versus will just hop onto one of those instead of doing their own broadcast. So that’s nice with it Simon’s first game back and all.

So many more live games on NHL Network. That will be awesome. Also, just browsing through NBC’s flex game options… Florida at New Jersey? Buffalo at the Islanders? St. Louis at the Lightning? LA at Dallas? Boy, those sound like mighty exciting games with great atmospheres that NBC won’t be touching with a ten foot pole.

I’m wondering whether or not to feel slighted by this, because, as an out-of-market fan, nationally televised games DO mean something (now that my Slingbox is defunct). Based on the local numbers from last year, Philly had a 2.18 and drew 664k households. Only Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis had a higher rating (Boston is tied). Only Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and NYR had higher raw households.

So Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York, and Detroit are obviously above us. It doesn’t seem clear that Ovechkin will get such a better national draw than the Stanley Cup finalists from a big hockey market as to necessitate two extra games. It does seem clear that we’d outdraw Boston nationally, and that Versus is going to get anyone to care about the Bruins in those three non-exclusives is just humorous.

This is definitely sour grapes on my part, but that’s a symptom of deeply caring about the national schedule. I had to establish a Flyers presence at a Steelers bar in Chicago last year during the first round, because it was the only place I could see them play. I nearly missed Gagne’s season-saving Game 4 OT winner against Boston because I had to run back to my apartment and find an illegal stream. (I know they didn’t actually blackout that overtime, but they DID blackout the last couple minutes of Game 2, and I missed Boston’s game winner because of it. I wasn’t about to have that happen again.) We FILL other teams’ arenas, you ad wizards; how can you not think there’s a huge out-of-market audience?

I live in the “Philly area” as defined by the NHL (northeastern Maryland), but my local cable company doesn’t carry CSN-Philly (we get Washington and Baltimore, so I can watch all the Caps games, but we get the Baltimore and Philly network stations, go figure) and there were games in the playoffs blacked out on the dish last year as well. The whole situation sends me into a state beyond pissed off. If the game isn’t available in my area already, don’t black it out for chrisakes!