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There was no knockout and it wasn't a TKO. Call it a split decision, with TSN outpointing Rogers Sportsnet to win the NHL trade deadline slugfest.
But Sportsnet took the final round by being the first to interview Marian Hossa, the principal player in the most anticipated trade of the day.
This was clearly a heavyweight bout, with both networks producing good work. In terms of breaking stories, TSN held an early lead, but Sportsnet fought back later in the afternoon to report several trades.
The third network, The Score, used fewer resources and chose not to compete at the same level as TSN and Sportsnet.
TSN and Sportsnet each employed about a dozen commentators and reporters to deliver coverage that lasted 10 hours, starting at 8 a.m. EST yesterday. In terms of style, Sportsnet rejected last year's party theme for a more conventional and effective news and information format.
TSN's on-air people, wearing suits and ties, looked more professional than the guys at Sportsnet and The Score who dressed in jackets, some in jeans, and wore shirts with open-necked collars.
Overall, TSN won the day by providing a good mix of commentary and news by interviewing a significantly larger number of traded players than the competition. It also capitalized on the lively commentary of Mike Milbury, Pierre McGuire, Darren Pang and John Ferguson.
Adding Ferguson, fired last month as the Toronto Maple Leafs' general manager, was questioned at the time, but it worked brilliantly.
Ferguson became a lightning rod for the leading theme of the day — the impact of the no-trade clauses.
Ferguson defended giving Leafs captain Mats Sundin a no-trade clause, saying "he would have walked if I hadn't."
But McGuire said, "They gave him the opportunity to walk [at the trade deadline] and he wouldn't."
When Milbury accused Ferguson of hamstringing his successor, Cliff Fletcher, with the no-trade clauses, Ferguson's rejoinder was: "He might have been hamstrung, but he certainly wasn't blindfolded."
In other words, Fletcher walked into this situation with his eyes wide open, had a month to persuade the players to move and couldn't close the deal.
Milbury, a former general manager, and Ferguson had another good spot when they described the pressure involved in the game of chicken of waiting until the final minutes of the deadline before making a deal.
"It's really a game of guts," Milbury said. "But no guts, no glory."
"It's all truth or dare," Ferguson said.
At Sportsnet, guest analyst Brian Lawton contributed good information by breaking down the Canadian teams' rosters and identifying what they needed in deals. Keith Primeau, a former player, described the feeling of being traded at the deadline.
"It's a strange walk," he said of moving from one dressing room to another.
At The Score, Mike Johnson, a former Leaf and currently an injured St. Louis Blues forward, performed very well as an analyst. Another, Craig Button, brought plenty of energy to the telecast, as did host Steve Kouleas, who referred to Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment chairman Larry Tanenbaum and chief executive officer Richard Peddie as "a Laurel and Hardy act."
The deal that provoked the strongest reaction was the Montreal Canadiens trading goaltender Cristobal Huet to Washington Capitals for not much — a second-round draft choice.
"I'm shocked," TSN's Keith Jones said.
"I'm surprised by it, but I'm not going to stand here and knock Bob Gainey [the Canadiens' general manager]," Sportsnet's Doug MacLean said.
Experts at both networks gave thumbs-up to Atlanta Thrashers for sending Hossa to Pittsburgh Penguins in return for a package consisting of players, a prospect and a first-round draft pick. "I think [Thrashers general manager] Don Waddell did a fantastic deal," Sportsnet's Bill Clement said. From Pittsburgh's perspective, McGuire said, "I don't like the deal at all."
Online traffic
TSN's Internet platform was busy yesterday. TSN.ca had 11.855 million page views as of 6 p.m. EST (preliminary figures), the second largest total after the 13.9 million views on the 2006 deadline day. The streamed TV coverage received 1.270 million hits over 10 hours, more than double last year's total of 607,000. The Sportsnet and Score numbers were unavailable.
- TSN's Glenn Healy offered a good solution to the no-trade clause controversy: legislate the clause in the collective labour agreement to stipulate that neither side can request it be opened up.
- Heated debate on Dave Hodge's TSN panel about the five or six Leafs who refused to waive their no-trade clauses had Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated saying the Leafs, who said no, should be "lionized, not demonized." Right. Steve Simmons called them the product of a culture that accepts losing.
- Milbury said Fletcher made a mistake by saying there was no interest in Bryan McCabe, revealing that Pavel Kubina reneged on a decision to lift his no-trade clause and refusing to comment on the question about complacency on the team. Milbury said Fletcher threw Kubina and McCabe "under the bus." We'd call it candour.
