I really enjoy watching Olympic hockey. As a hockey fan, I don’t know how you couldn’t. The games are fast-paced, the skill level is awesome, the energy level is incredible. Add the patriotism and you get a tremendous tournament.
Do these games benefit the NHL? Probably not much. Has NBC given hockey maximum exposure? No – but they have their reasons. It would be nice if these games could be played either right before or right after the NHL season, but they can’t be. The Winter Olympics are held in February. Without the backdrop of Olympic competition, these games would not mean as much. So once every four years, accept some of the negatives created by these games and enjoy the hockey. USA vs. Finland, Canada vs. Slovakia, medals on the line — what a great day for hockey!! The US has tremendous speed and a great goaltender. Canada has everything. I really like their defense. I hope that USA and Canada can both win and meet for the gold on Sunday. If that happens, as Penguin fans, we can’t lose. Sure we will be rooting for the USA and Brooks Orpik. If Canada wins, our captain and goalie will have gold medals. This is what NBC and the NHL is also rooting for as an end result. This game will be on NBC’s main network and the ratings will be great — especially in Pittsburgh, making Sunday another great day for hockey. That’s the view from my living room.
Note — Another bonus of Olympic hockey is no Steigy or Errey — Alas, Tuesday they will be back, but I won’t care — I’ll be in E-11 at the Igloo cheering for our medal winner(s).
I’ll take a mid-Winter game between Canada and Slovakia on MSNBC any day over a Tuesday night mid-February game between Nashville and Minnesota on Versus(That would be assuming I got Versus, but I don’t thanks to the Comcast/DirecTV squabble which surely will not be settled by the time the playofs start). The only thing I fail to understand is that the NHL shuts down for 2 weeks to give the league more exposure by having their players play in the Olympics then NBC (Which carries the NHL and would benefit from increased popularity) decides to put the games on channels that many people do not get. How exactly is this increasing the exposure, and how is any of this benefitting the NHL? Hell, from the way they’ve pimped this sport at these olympic games, I wouldn’t be surprised if NBC has a new cable channel dedicated to Curling once the games are over. You can’t turn on NBC,CNBC,MSNBC or UHD without seeing a Curling match at any given hour of the day. Bettman needs to find out how much the Curling lobby paid NBC to get its sport so much coverage and offer them more to give it to hockey.
Two more GREAT games today. I haven’t been this excited to watch hockey since last summer. GO ORPIK!!!!!!!!! I agree the late night guys suck! I like the prime time guys, and would like them better if Milbury would shut his pie hole.
I agree 99%. I don’t care if the NHL benefits anything from these games. It would be nice but yet I don’t care.
The only thing I disagree on is the announcers – I hate the guys that do the late night games from CTV, they sound like robots, it’s hard to stay up to watch the games that way.
I think they should wait to announce the medals until Tuesday April 6th, you know, give the players a little time to settle in once back 😉