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Exposure can be a problem when hockey is played outdoors in January.
But this sort of exposure, which is to say U.S. and Canadian television coverage on New Year's Day, the NHL doesn't mind.
The Jan. 1 afternoon game at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres will be carried by both the CBC and NBC, it was announced yesterday.
The key for the NHL, of course, is NBC's participation. It's been a long time since a U.S. network featured an NHL game on a New Year's Day afternoon.
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Sam Flood, NBC's hockey producer, said NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer pushed for the Jan. 1 date because it gave NBC an opportunity to showcase the game on one of the best viewing afternoons of the year.
As well, competition from bowl telecasts on Jan. 1 has dropped off because of the stretched college football bowl schedule.
"There's much more of an opportunity now to stand out on New Year's Day," Flood said.
Each network will provide technological extras.
"We're going to have an airplane in the air for aerial shots, much the way we do at a Sunday night football game," Flood said. "We'll be taking high and wide shots to show the 70-plus thousand people surrounding this sheet of ice. And we'll be going down low with hand-held cameras along the glass."
Sherali Najak, the executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada, said the CBC also will use additional cameras at ice level.
"With the amount of space you have along the boards, you can really afford to do that," he said.
Both producers sounded excited about the show.
"You're going to see an incredible spectacle," Flood said. "The scope of it is so grand."
"This is big-time event television," Najak said.
History shows that an outdoor game draws big numbers, at least in Canada.
The CBC's telecast of the Heritage Classic in Edmonton (Montreal Canadiens-Oilers) in November of 2003 drew 2.747 million, the CBC's second largest regular-season audience ever. (The tops is 2.810 million on April 7 of 2007, for Canadiens-Toronto Maple Leafs.)
"It's a slam-dunk event," Najak said.
Radio auditions
Brian Duff, the former Leafs TV anchor, has filled in as guest host of AM640 Toronto's Leafs Lunch for the past four days and seems right at home.
Former host Jeff Marek, who will anchor HNIC Radio on Sirius Satellite, left the show last week. Duff, who works evenings at NHL Network, is a good bet to take over the noon-hour show. Program director Gord Harris says he has done a "great job."
Marek's departure also leaves AM640's Bill Watters show without a co-host. The Score's Steve Kouleas will pinch hit once this week and twice next week.
Leafs on TV
The breakdown of Leafs regional telecasts for this season is as follows: Leafs TV will air 20 regular-season games. Rogers Sportsnet bought 32 games, then sold 10 to TSN. TSN will be allowed to take five of those 10 games nationwide.
TSN's national rights deal with the NHL gives it two more Leaf games. That brings the total to 12, seven of which will receive national distribution.
Under TSN's new NHL agreement, which will be announced in a few weeks, it will get three more national Leafs games starting in 2008-09. (Hockey Night will get three less.) The addition of those three will bring TSN's Leafs total to 15: 10 national and five regional.
Analysis from Milbury
Mike Milbury will appear on TSN during the NHL season as an analyst. The former New York Islanders general manager also will work for NBC and the New England Sports Network in Boston.
- It was a New England Patriots blowout, but NBC's Sunday night telecast outdrew Fox Television's coverage of the Emmy Awards. NBC earned an 11.7 rating (percentage of U.S. households tuned in) for the Pats' 38-14 victory over the San Diego Chargers. Fox Television had a 10.5 for the Emmys.
- TSN's Degree Poker Championship series begins its third season tonight with back-to-back episodes, starting at 8 p.m. EDT.
