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On Thursday night, Red Fisher wrote a column on deadline, as he usually does, off the Montreal Canadiens-Boston Bruins playoff opener.
Yesterday morning, he put together his usual Saturday package consisting of a column and NHL notebook that will fill a page in today's Montreal Gazette.
Tonight, he will be back at the Bell Centre press box in Montreal, writing on deadline.
"Doesn't everybody do it?" he asked yesterday.
Some do, but Fisher will be 82 in August, an age when all but very few sportswriters are long retired and telling war stories.
He has abandoned one task. He no longer rushes downstairs for postgame quotes, but not because it is physically tiring.
"I try to avoid that as much as possible for one reason," he said. "They have nothing to say.
"I strongly suspect that in recent years, at least, these players have had preseason instructions or an education from PR people on what to say to the media. I think the preseason course takes about 17 seconds based on what you hear."
Fisher has been covering the Canadiens for 53 seasons, first for the Montreal Star and then the Gazette. That stands, as far as we can tell, as a record for a beat writer at a major newspaper anywhere. (He was also the sports editor of both papers.) And we can't think of another journalist in his 80s still writing from the press box on deadline.
The game was more exciting 30 years ago, he says.
"But I think that has a hell of a lot to do with my covering so many great teams during the 17 Stanley Cups that the Canadiens have won," he said.
And he dislikes the postlockout NHL.
"I think the shootout is an abomination," he said. "Providing one point to a loser is god awful. And the two-referee system sucks. Beyond that, it's great."
But retirement is not a consideration.
"Let's put it this way — I'm a workaholic and always have been. And the people I love, starting with my family, don't want me to quit. I often listen to them. Most of the time, I do listen."
Online woes
Yesterday's webcasts — one, a Tennis Canada production, and the other, the Masters streaming of Amen Corner and 15th and 16th holes — ran into all kinds of problems.
The Canada-Chile Davis Cup match on tenniscanada.com was marred by poor picture quality and weak audio.
Kevin Pope of Tennis Canada said the association is working with the Chilean television network producing the coverage to improve the feed. The morning webcast did receive 30,000 hits, which is not insignificant. The next webcast is scheduled for today at 10 a.m. EDT.
After an opening day in which its live streaming channel crashed, Mastersgolf.ca experienced more problems yesterday. The feed was consistently interrupted and, for the most part, unavailable.
Mark Zecchino, the Masters Canadian representative, described the situation as "not good."
"Everyone outside of the U.S. and fringe areas of the U.S. are having issues," he said by e-mail. "All involved are working very hard to find a solution."
Habs nation
Réseau des Sport's distribution countrywide (2.57 million households) is a mere 20 per cent of CBC Television's 13 million.
However, RDS outdrew the CBC for the Bruins-Canadiens opener on Thursday, 1.48 million viewers, compared with 1.186 million.
The RDS audience was its second largest ever for a Habs telecast. The last game of the 2006-07 regular season against Toronto Maple Leafs drew 1.531 million.
The CBC's second game of the Thursday doubleheader, the second game of the series between the Calgary Flames and San Jose Sharks, was watched by 882,000, virtually the same as the first-game audience of 892,000.
TSN's Nashville Predators-Detroit Red Wings telecast was watched by 232,000, and the Dallas Stars-Anaheim Ducks by 191,000.
-- Bryant Gumbel's departure from the NFL Network was announced as his decision. But his playcalling over two seasons barely reached the level of average.
