ADAM PROTEAU
The Hockey News
There are a couple ways to interpret the news that the NHL will be the first pro sports organization to partner up with Internet phenomenon YouTube.
The optimist in me says the league deserves a whole heap of credit for hitching part of its wagon to a cutting-edge technology. He also says youngsters who spend much of their spare time perusing the world wide web – on which YouTube is now ubiquitous – will become familiar with the game and its players in ways they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to using the Betamax video terminals mom and dad still have hooked up in the rec room.
The pessimist in me counters by noting that a greater degree of familiarization with the NHL will breed contempt among fans when they realize what those of us lucky enough to have the Centre Ice satellite package already know: the stark disparity in the production quality of televised U.S. games remains a sore spot for a league eager to expand its horizons beyond the gate-driven present.
Now, this isn’t to disparage the men and women who work on American NHL broadcasts. There are some efforts I enjoy less than others, but, by-and-large, the appropriate amount of consideration and creativity is going into improving the league’s TV product. As well, there has been a marked increase between this season and last in the quality of games aired on Versus (nee OLN) and NHL vice-president of broadcasting John Shannon continues to provide much-needed expertise from his days with the CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada and Leafs TV.
However, there’s no denying some NHL telecasts still appear to be lit via candlelight, with interview sets on loan from the local community cable channel. It’s also quite clear the energy levels of a few play-by-play men rival that of Ben Stein (a.k.a. the near-comatose teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off).
A remedy for the problem is, of course, an infusion of money from the owners (insert cynical belly-laughs here) to spend on broadcasts. The old adage “you’ve got to spend money to make money” obviously applies, but NHL owners have preferred cost certainty to image improvement since the league was founded.
And they wonder why the NHL’s U.S. TV ratings continue along at a PBS pace. You only get out what you put in and when it comes to putting American hockey broadcasts on par with those of their vastly superior Canadian cousins, the NHL hasn’t put in nearly enough.
