What is ESPN's problem?

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ScottyBowman

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no13matssundin said:
Whats ridiculous is that youre arguing that ESPN is a credible hockey source. Give your head a shake.

No, whats ridiculous is that some Canadians think that only Canadians can talk about hockey and anything that comes from the US in regards to hockey is garbage. These are the same people that love the fake noise they put on CBC during the playoffs so you can barely hear the announcers.
 

Double-Shift Lasse

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ESPN's lack of cred hockey-wise comes from the fact that its personalities are not fans. Sure, they've got experts, but they've got experts for every sport. The core ESPN folks are not fans, don't know the sport.
 

Muleskinner

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bladoww said:
Besides the fairly obvious reasons that they don't show enough hockey, why do they seem to not give a flying F about the sport? Look at the way they've worded the poll on the home page (still up at the moment)...



Do you care?!

Just very disrespectful IMO. Could you EVER see an ESPN poll using the same question only substituting NHL for NBA, NFL, or MLB? I doubt it. I wish I lived in/near Canada to get more hockey, and get away from having to depend on ESPN.

:handclap: Im right with ya on that. Im sick of all ESPNS negative coverage on this lockout. They have posted the same kind of "polls" on their site for months now. Those polls dont mean sqat. Mostly the people voting on them are either not NHL fans to begin with, or they are fed up fans that will post that they dont care because they hope the league and players will see it and end this. :mad:

They did the same thing in the last baseball strike but not to this level.
 

Muleskinner

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ScottyBowman said:
Thats ridiculous. ESPN tried to pimp the NHL for many years. They showed like 5 games a week back in the mid 90's with ESPN2. They had nhl2night on every day. They showed all the playoff games. They TRIED hard to make the NHL work. Unfortunately, nobody watched so they gave up.

Another good post, and its true. ESPN did try and sell the NHL for years to their veiwers. The NHL has done a very poor job of adapting the game to the main stream fan IMHO. Do away with the ties first by going to shootouts after OT. This is an easy one! Eliminate the biggest part of hockey that the non fan hates and put in the most exciting part of the game that bringings all fans out of there seats to decide the winner. I could go on about how they need to go to a larger ice surface to open up the skill level, but I have always felt this way about the shoot outs. I have never understood why they havent done this. The NFL isnt afraid to change the game a bit, or at least experiment alittle. Take the two point conversion for example. They seem to understand that sometimes the game must make changes to bring the game to wider audiances and larger viewership.

Ok, let the hockey purests start their bashing......now.
 

Jason MacIsaac

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Why do people care if hockey grows. That will only mean owners will make more, players make more and owners charge more for tickets (based on higher demand). Real hockey fans will continue to watch the game weither they have to watch it on ESPN 2 or if they have to listen on the internet. When they ask if hockey will recover from this lockout...I say, who cares....as long as hockey is back.
 

Reilly311

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Jason MacIsaac said:
Why do people care if hockey grows.


um because I'm sick of having to pay for extra cable services just to watch it on TV. I also hate only being able to talk hockey with people over the internet instead of real life. The game will also benefit because kids will play hockey instead of Baseball, Basketball, and Football. Imagine how much better hockey would be if Ben Rothlisberger was centering Jeremey Shockey with Terrell Owens on the other wing. :eek:
 

AdvDave

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What is really funny is watching Hradek still hold his story about the cancellation of the season tomorrow like it is a gold medal or something.
When obviously all the owner really told him is that if this bargaining session goes nowhere, there will be no hockey. Well, duh!
On sportscenter he was still sticking to his story despite all the murmurs from players and the fact that obviously progress was made tonight.

Congrats Hradek,
You are officially a tool.
 

Jason MacIsaac

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Reilly311 said:
um because I'm sick of having to pay for extra cable services just to watch it on TV. I also hate only being able to talk hockey with people over the internet instead of real life. The game will also benefit because kids will play hockey instead of Baseball, Basketball, and Football. Imagine how much better hockey would be if Ben Rothlisberger was centering Jeremey Shockey with Terrell Owens on the other wing. :eek:
You would have Owens rubbing his ass against the boards after a goal, shockey calling Val Bure gay in the public and Rothlisberger coughing up interceptions up the middle.
 

Muleskinner

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What???

Jason MacIsaac said:
Why do people care if hockey grows. That will only mean owners will make more, players make more and owners charge more for tickets (based on higher demand). Real hockey fans will continue to watch the game weither they have to watch it on ESPN 2 or if they have to listen on the internet. When they ask if hockey will recover from this lockout...I say, who cares....as long as hockey is back.

Thats the the kind of narrow minded thinking that has this league in the shape its in man!! Of course the "real" hockey fans will always be there.....thats not what we are talking about. You are a case in point as far as Im concerned. The type that would rather keep the statisquo so to speek and just let things be while this LEAGUE needs an overhaul bigtime if it is to generate the $$$ that both the NHL and the players are demanding. Dont you see that without TV revenue our league will die??? Of course the "game" wont die but this league needs to shape up in the marketing aspect to the common sports fan in order to survive. :amazed:

Does anyone here understand this. :dunno:
 

Jason MacIsaac

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Muleskinner said:
Thats the the kind of narrow minded thinking that has this league in the shape its in man!! Of course the "real" hockey fans will always be there.....thats not what we are talking about. You are a case in point as far as Im concerned. The type that would rather keep the statisquo so to speek and just let things be while this LEAGUE needs an overhaul bigtime if it is to generate the $$$ that both the NHL and the players are demanding. Dont you see that without TV revenue our league will die??? Of course the "game" wont die but this league needs to shape up in the marketing aspect to the common sports fan in order to survive. :amazed:

Does anyone here understand this. :dunno:
I am not a fan of the NHL, I am a fan of hockey. I watch hockey at every level and will continue to watch it. Hockey dieing in USA means little to nothing to me, call me selfish...actually I know I am. As long as hockey is where I am then I am fine and dandy with that.
 

Muleskinner

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Jason MacIsaac said:
I am not a fan of the NHL, I am a fan of hockey. I watch hockey at every level and will continue to watch it. Hockey dieing in USA means little to nothing to me, call me selfish...actually I know I am. As long as hockey is where I am then I am fine and dandy with that.

Well you should be fine and dandy now because the game IS all around you. If thats true, then why are you here on this thread talking about the BUSINESS OF HOCKEY??? If your not a fan of the NHL then please explain why you are in here. The business of hockey is ABOUT THE NHL.
 

Trottier

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Muleskinner said:
Thats the the kind of narrow minded thinking that has this league in the shape its in man!! Of course the "real" hockey fans will always be there.....thats not what we are talking about. You are a case in point as far as Im concerned. The type that would rather keep the statisquo so to speek and just let things be while this LEAGUE needs an overhaul bigtime if it is to generate the $$$ that both the NHL and the players are demanding. :amazed:

Does anyone here understand this. :dunno:

Rather be "narrow-minded" (by your definition) than a sellout. Sure, let's put allllll the gimmicks needed attract the "casssssual US fan," a mythical soul who has never ever had any interest whatsoever in the NHL. As if shootouts, etc. are going to suddenly get Middle America away from milking the cow and turned on to Sergei Fedorov. :joker:

Why stop there? Let's copy the XFL. That's coooool. As long as it attracts fans and makes money for the owners, players and TV execs, apparently some "broad-minded" fans will be appeased. In case you haven't noticed, the NHL has made changes along the way; perhaps you aren't old enough to recall that regular season OT of any kind didn't exist until 20 years ago. NHLers in the Olympics is a newer. The goal lines have been moved back, offsides rules have been changed, as has fighting rules all over the past decade or so. That's change. Now you have 4 on 4 in OT and some are pining for the shootout gimmick. And there's more.

Those of us who want to move carefully in making changes to this great game, are liable to do a lot less damage than some 5-minute-attention-span-video-age-crazed punks who want to hip hop and bastardize the sport into some unrecognizable form...so it can achieve greeeeeat TV ratings! Whoopee! Than we'll all be popular! :speechles

If US fans don't care for the sport (and many don't), you of course try to attract them. But not to the extreme of trying to be another "me too" sellout league.
 
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chum

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Gurj said:
Look at this: Every state had over 50% NOT CARING if there was no season... :shakehead

http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/story?page=nhlseasonpoll050203


it's not that bad.

look at it this way. 27% of the sport fans (i assume sport fans got to vote on this) cared if NHL is expected to cancel the 04/05 season.

let me ask YOU (not you specifically, but anyone here) a question then: would you care if there were no other major sports going on? personally i do not care if there were football, basketball, or baseball.

hockey is the 4th major sport in USA and having 27% of the people caring is not too bad.

i am willing to say that if we were not going to have NBA, fans of NHL/MLB/NFL that do not care whether there is going to be an NBA season will be more than 60%.
 

Reilly311

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27% of 100,000 people is a pretty good percentage IMO all things considering.

Good to see Penslyvannia are smart. :)
 

chum

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Reilly311 said:
27% of 100,000 people is a pretty good percentage IMO all things considering.

Good to see Penslyvannia are smart. :)

michigan ppl are pretty good too.
 

bladoww

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hockey is the 4th major sport in USA and having 27% of the people caring is not too bad.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing, on the surface it seems low... you have to really think about it.
 

CGG

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I find it amazing that thousands upon thousands of people take the time to actually respond to a poll saying they don't care. If they really didn't care, why vote at all?

Most likely, a good chunk of the people that voted they don't care actually do care, they're just bitter that there's no hockey, much like the rest of us.
 

skellart

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not only that but considering that most real hockey fans don't necessarily go to espn for their hockey news, that's alot of votes not accounted for. What is this, Florida :joker:
 

triggrman

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ESPN hates and bad mouths hockey for the same reason they dog Notre Dame football; Their competition makes more money off of it then they do. Allow me to explain my opinion.

Fox has the majority of the local hockey packages, ESPN gets the national. Every night ESPN runs a hockey game fox is running a local game at the same time. Most people in hockey areas (where the majority of the fans are) will watch the local markets team instead of the ESPN national broadcast.

Then there's the die hard hockey fan that is not in a local market, he doesn't watch the ESPN national broadcast either as he is plugged into a Center Ice package watching the game of choice. The only viewers that tune in to ESPNs national hockey night broadcast is the fan that doesn't have center ice, local team to support, the casual fan and channel surfers that stop if a fight is ongoing.
 

espo*

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Jason MacIsaac said:
Why do people care if hockey grows. That will only mean owners will make more, players make more and owners charge more for tickets (based on higher demand). Real hockey fans will continue to watch the game weither they have to watch it on ESPN 2 or if they have to listen on the internet. When they ask if hockey will recover from this lockout...I say, who cares....as long as hockey is back.
Right on,i've said the same thing many times.Who cares?It's fine as it is.
 

Gaebriel

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Double-Shift Lassés said:
ESPN's lack of cred hockey-wise comes from the fact that its personalities are not fans. Sure, they've got experts, but they've got experts for every sport. The core ESPN folks are not fans, don't know the sport.

I didn't see anyone reply to this, which is a shame because it's a very good point. Something I've noticed for a long time. When hockey was on, you could easily tell that the sportscenter reporters really didn't care about what they were reporting. It was more like.. "oh yeah some hockey stuff happened, now lets see these basketball highlights". It's not just the reporters either, some of their personalities are blatant about their disdain for the sport. PTI anyone? Could Tony Kornhole be a bigger shmuck?

Everything from the reporting to the talk shows to the top 10 highlights paints hockey as second class (I never understood why a freakin basketball dunk deserves to ever make the top 10 highlights, but whatever).

If there ever is hockey again I certainly won't be waiting on ESPNBA to give me my coverage. I'll be hooking up my Direct Ice feed directly to my computer and recording whatever I want in glorious high-def.
 

espo*

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Muleskinner said:
Well you should be fine and dandy now because the game IS all around you. If thats true, then why are you here on this thread talking about the BUSINESS OF HOCKEY??? If your not a fan of the NHL then please explain why you are in here. The business of hockey is ABOUT THE NHL.
The forum is the business of hockey not the business of the nhl or the nhl in the United States. As far as business is concerned here then we are doing fine except for large ticket prices and player salaries,which would only get worse if the game became big-time popular in the States.So he has every right to be on this board.What's good for you is not necessarily good for us and what person is not concerned about themself? Thinking we are wrong for not caring about the poularity of the game in the U.S is out of touch.I do care about the game in the States inasmuch as i know the main markets(new york,boston,detroit,etc) are crucial for the game itself and for my ability to see games but whether teams form in vegas or Carolina or they get ratings on espn isn't my concern,that's your concern.
To me a league without the chicago blackhawks or detroit red wings etc would be a major travesty but a league without the carolina hurricanes or mighty ducks would'nt cause me to lose sleep at all and certainly the ratings on espn don't concern me because it does'nt affect me.If it did then i would care.The popularity of hockey is the popularity of hockey.....it is what it is and will be what it is.Hey...i wish you could get to see games with ease but that's just the way it is south of the border and it only bothers us so much since we can see all the games we want up here.You can't expect us to be biting or fingernails in nervousness because the ratings for hockey on espn suck.
 
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