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The CBC's Hockey Night in Canada is planning to relegate the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Southern Ontario market and give the Pittsburgh Penguins-Montreal Canadiens game national distribution on Saturday night.
This will be one of the few times in the past several years that the Leafs will not be seen outside Ontario.
The Leafs are traditionally given carriage in the majority of the Canadian markets because they are the leading audience producer for Hockey Night.
However, the team had the third worst record in the NHL heading into Tuesday night's games and on Saturday will be playing another non-playoff team, the Buffalo Sabres.
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Sherali Najak, the executive producer of Hockey Night, said the Pens-Habs game will be broadcast countrywide because the Penguins and Canadiens rank fourth and fifth, respectively, in the Eastern Conference.
As well, Pittsburgh star Sidney Crosby caught Tampa Bay Lightning forward Vincent Lacavalier for the NHL points lead on Monday.
We argued on Tuesday that the Ottawa Senators, first in the Eastern Conference, and also the Canadiens should take precedence over the Leafs for the remainder of the season.
From the Hockey Night point of view, national exposure for the Senators and Canadiens would help market the two teams for the playoffs.
E-mail response to the column was overwhelmingly in favour of limiting Toronto to the Ontario market.
"In theory, it's a good idea," said Scott Moore, the head of CBC Sports. "And it's something we discuss weekly as to what the distribution will be. We review the schedule keeping in mind team performance all the time."
Digital TV viewers have access to the CBC's TV stations across the country and therefore are able to watch whichever 7 p.m. (EST) game they wish. As well, CBCSports.ca streams all Hockey Night telecasts.
Watters v. Kypreos
Rogers Sportsnet commentators Bill Watters and Nick Kypreos had a heated exchange last Saturday over Larry Tanenbaum, the chairman and part owner of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Maple Leafs.
Watters dislikes Tanenbaum and believes he is responsible for most of what's gone wrong with the Leafs. But Kypreos says you can't blame the chairman for mistakes made by the club's general manager.
Tanenbaum agreed to hire John Ferguson as the general manager in 2003, but Ferguson was chosen by Ken Dryden, then a MLSE executive, and Richard Peddie, the chief executive officer and president.
For all the talk of the MLSE board's intrusiveness, Ferguson appears to have been given a free hand. It was Ferguson, not Tanenbaum, who made the bad trades, spent money on the wrong players and signed free agents who didn't work out.
Watters, who was dropped by MLSE as a Leafs executive in 2003, is an entertaining commentator. But his focus on Tanenbaum gives voice to critics who say he's a former employee with an axe to grind.
Starring in L.A.
The key to marketing a sports team or a league is to get the athletes out front and before the public. NASCAR does it. Tennis doesn't.
To sell hockey in the Los Angeles market, the Kings have been doing some interesting things with their players on LAKings.com.
A section called Kings Vision consists of high-end home videos and sketches produced by the club, with the players functioning as performers. In an all-star spot, defencemen Lubomir Visnovsky solicits votes by passing around personalized cookies. Lubo comes across as a funny guy. The team's training camp in Austria is the subject of another piece.
Mike Altieri, the Kings vice-president of communications and corporate development, said the club wanted to produce a vehicle that would create buzz and drive more traffic to the website.
"Back when the NHL standardized all 30 team websites, we made a decision to put a lot of new resources and creative thought into producing unique video content for LAKings.com that would allow us to stand out above the other 29 teams," he wrote in an e-mail message.
The club created a video production department consisting of four full-time staffers. The host is Heidi Androl, a finalist in the 2007 edition of the TV show The Apprentice.
Altieri said Kings Vision is producing results.
"We recently closed a multiyear partnership with an insurance company that never would have come about without the accomplishments of our website team and is the first sign of the potential revenue streams of LAKings.com," he said.
