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GDT: G15: Wild at Sharks - 9:30 pm (FSN)

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Prior

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Jan 18, 2020
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Dee Oh Cee said:
The NHL is just insanely stupid when it comes to most of this stuff with the schedule and the times. In a year without fans that'll (hopefully) not happen again, how do you not do a bunch of weird things with the schedule and the broadcasts to get more people to watch? Start games at 4PM (5 Eastern) every day. Stagger them so that you can watch other games during the intermissions. Do whatever you can to make the product more interesting for people who are not able to go.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for an NHL game to begin at 9:30 PM Central time...and I don't want to hear anything about TV or any of that BS. It's a middle finger to the fans. But at the same time none of this is surprising with the NHL, a league that is so incompetent when it comes to marketing itself to potential fans that it starts eight games at the same time and then the next slate of games an hour later so that they all go to intermission at the same time.
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Exactly this.

With many people from home and mostly stuck there, there is no reason there shouldn’t be a minute from 5pm-11pm that doesn’t have a live hockey game under most circumstances.

NHL does everything it can to make it more challenging to grow the game. Hell, even in a state where we about as diehard about the game as there is, the team has no ability to sell their product given the starts. Part of that is on the Wild to drive change there though and not be resigned to getting assigned whatever is leftover.
 
Minnesnota

Minnesnota

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Apr 20, 2017
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Prior said:
Exactly this.

With many people from home and mostly stuck there, there is no reason there shouldn’t be a minute from 5pm-11pm that doesn’t have a live hockey game under most circumstances.

NHL does everything it can to make it more challenging to grow the game. Hell, even in a state where we about as diehard about the game as there is, the team has no ability to sell their product given the starts. Part of that is on the Wild to drive change there though and not be resigned to getting assigned whatever is leftover.
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Hard for the NHL to grow the game when they're 3rd in line when it comes to TV contract talks. NFL and NBA take precedent. We're lucky MLB post-season barely overlaps, or it'd be even worse.

You're right in that they don't do themselves any favors, but there are certain factors at play that make it especially different.
 

Wabit

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May 23, 2016
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MNNumbers said:
Division 8 is the big problem here. There are several ideas built closely to this idea.

First the schedule matrix:
You can do 6x3 (that's your own division). 4x4 (that's the other division nearest your own. 2x24 (that's everyone else). This option is very close to what I think they will do next year, especially if you combine the first 2 pieces into one 8-team group.

You can do your idea, where each conference spans the whole continent (I assume you mean Divisions 1, 8, 4, and 7 make a conference, or something similar. The drawback there is the continual cross continental playoff travel.

In general, I dislike 4-team groups, because there is too much chance that every one of them is a bad team, and then the playoff qualifiers are not what they should be.

I've tried to do alignments with that system before, and I can't get it to work the way I want. The problem is always 2 pieces: The CTZ , MTZ and PTZ teams don't break up into a fair arrangement very easily (see your #8). And, with 7 Canada teams, some US team is always playing across the border, and that's not so fair, really.

But, it sure is an interesting idea.
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Even if one Div has 4 bad teams it's only 1 bad team in the Playoffs. It's pretty common that already. With this setup the best 6 teams in each Conference get in the Playoffs (2 Div winners + 4 WC). With the heavy conference you eliminate something like the Pacific (4 or 5 teams below .500) and Central (every team above .500) had for years.

There really isn't anymore cross country travel than there is currently with at least 1 game in every arena. No matter the alignment 1 Division is going to be messed up for travel. DAL, COL, (one of) AZ/Vegas, FLA teams just aren't close to the rest of the other teams. Keep these 2 game sets for the Conference and 4 of the 6 Division games. The last 6 games of the season are home and home Divisional games.

For the Playoffs the cross country travel isn't really that bad. It's a few hour plane ride, not taking a bus or anything. After G1 of each round both teams are in the same situation for travel.

I's also change the points system the the a variation of the 3 point international system. But that is a different topic.
 
Webster

Webster

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Start time is 7:30 local, that's normal over there. League can't help it's +2 in MN.

Btw...Donato is on their 4th line. Looks like Guerin did the right thing.

And Dubnyk is out.
 

Wabit

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May 23, 2016
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Minnesnota said:
Hard for the NHL to grow the game when they're 3rd in line when it comes to TV contract talks. NFL and NBA take precedent. We're lucky MLB post-season barely overlaps, or it'd be even worse.

You're right in that they don't do themselves any favors, but there are certain factors at play that make it especially different.
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The NFL is in their own world on network tv. I'd put college football and basketball ahead of the NHL too. NBCSN going under is really going to hurt the NHL.

ESPN has little interest in hockey, and even worse coverage. Fox does a lot of the local NHL broadcasts, but they are into motorsports on FS1. CBS and ABC don't really seem into broadening their sports portfolio.
 
Minnesnota

Minnesnota

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Wabit said:
The NFL is in their own world on network tv. I'd put college football and basketball ahead of the NHL too. NBCSN going under is really going to hurt the NHL.

ESPN has little interest in hockey, and even worse coverage. Fox does a lot of the local NHL broadcasts, but they are into motorsports on FS1. CBS and ABC don't really seem into broadening their sports portfolio.
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It really does suck. A ton of networks are cutting back on their portfolios due to the lack of demand. I haven't had cable since college a decade ago, and I pay for gray-market services to get my sports fix.

If the league actually put an emphasis on making NHL.TV an attractive product without blackouts (we actually may have an opportunity for this) then I could see myself actually paying for it. But it's too expensive for the crap quality, reliability, and blackouts.

I pay $100/season and get every single game, no blackouts, HD, multiple feeds, historical games, and I can watch all the games simultaneously on one screen, sports book style.
 
StateofCelly

StateofCelly

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Jan 5, 2017
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Webster said:
Start time is 7:30 local, that's normal over there. League can't help it's +2 in MN.

Btw...Donato is on their 4th line. Looks like Guerin did the right thing.

And Dubnyk is out.
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That’s the point though, sure it’s fine for the Sharks and their fans, they have nothing to complain about. Minnesota is the odd man out.. I think the Stars being in the SCF last year and us not being “must watch” at this point bottlenecked the decision.. oh well. Still here watching. LGW
 

Wabit

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May 23, 2016
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Minnesnota said:
It really does suck. A ton of networks are cutting back on their portfolios due to the lack of demand. I haven't had cable since college a decade ago, and I pay for gray-market services to get my sports fix.

If the league actually put an emphasis on making NHL.TV an attractive product without blackouts (we actually may have an opportunity for this) then I could see myself actually paying for it. But it's too expensive for the crap quality, reliability, and blackouts.

I pay $100/season and get every single game, no blackouts, HD, multiple feeds, historical games, and I can watch all the games simultaneously on one screen, sports book style.
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There is a way around those blackouts with a VPN.
 

Wabit

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Well they didn't roll over and play dead after they gave up that fast goal.
 
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