When the OLN network launched its hockey coverage in the fall of 2005, the first reaction from many observers was, uh, oh, this could be a long season. The audio was erratic and the studio set was barebones.
Fortunately for NHL fans and OLN, everything has improved as the Stanley Cup playoffs near. Further good news: OLN hopes to air playoff games every night.
"We had four or five weeks basically to prepare," Marc Fein, OLN's senior vice president of programming and production, said from his Stamford, Conn., office. "We had no time to build a (studio) set. You're only as strong as your weakest link. But everyone pulled together and got the right people on board. We're pretty happy and proud, especially recently, how the telecasts have been."
Fein, who previously worked for Fox SportsNet in Los Angeles, has recruited top personnel such as the lead game twosome of Mike Emrick and John Davidson. Bill Clement, the former Flyers center, has seized on his first studio hosting job and run with it.
"We had a lot of greenhorns, including me in my position," Clement said.
Clement has years of TV experience as a game analyst, but he's new to the studio host role.
"When I started this," Clement said, "I got a call from one of the higher-ups at ESPN. He said, `Don't expect things to happen overnight. It took us three years, when we got hockey back in the early 1990s, before we felt we had the product where we wanted it.'
"We were like an expansion team that, all of a sudden, has become a playoff threat right away. I'm thrilled at the progress we've made."