King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Niches are cool. In the wake of NBC's leaving an NHL playoff overtime for a Preakness pre-race show, it's time for hockey fans to embrace their nichetude.
Read more: Sports, TV, NBC, NHL, Ice Hockey, King Kaufman, NHL playoffs, Sports Daily
May 21, 2007 | Being a fan of a niche sport is not a bad thing. Being a fan of a niche sport is a cool thing. The thing is, you have to embrace the nicheness. The nichetude.
Hockey fans, it's time for us -- yes, angry letter writers pining for coverage of the rumored NHL playoffs in this space, us -- to embrace the nichetude. The nichitality. The nichecism.
There's whining in the hockey niche over what happened Saturday on NBC. Game 5 of the Ottawa Senators-Buffalo Sabres playoff series went into overtime, and NBC went to Baltimore.
The network switched to coverage of the Preakness Stakes at 5 p.m. EDT, just before overtime began. Daniel Alfredsson scored at 9:32 of the first extra period to give the Senators a 3-2 win to clinch the series, sending Ottawa to the Stanley Cup Finals.
The winning goal was scored at about 5:20 EDT. The horses left the gate at about 6:17. An hour of pre-race nonsense over overtime hockey! Shades of "Heidi"!
Except for two things. The overtime period was shown on television, on Versus, which is actually in about three of every four households where NBC is available, though how many of those households know that can probably be counted without benefit of sophisticated electronics. Or removal of hosiery.
And: Way, way more people -- about three times as many -- want to watch the ponies getting saddled up and the owners talking about what a wonderful, wonderful experience this is and the cadets singing "Maryland My Maryland" than want to watch an NHL playoff overtime period. I'm not one of those people, but I don't think I'd be a bad person if I were one of them. People want to see what they want to see.
The NHL signed the contract with NBC that gives the network the right to switch away, a right that sports leagues routinely deny networks in TV deals, precisely because of the "Heidi" fiasco in 1969, when NBC switched away from a thrilling Oakland Raiders-New York Jets regular-season game to start the otherwise forgettable TV movie.
That was a horrible call, the result mostly of poor communication, partly due to the relatively primitive technology available at the time. The network brass, unable to get through on jammed phone lines, didn't have cellphones to tell the guy at the switch to ignore earlier instructions and stick with the game.
Saturday's call: Not horrible. In fact, NBC would have been crazy not to go to the Preakness, aesthetic considerations of overtime playoff hockey (exciting!) vs. pre-race chazzerai (horses walking, rich people air kissing!) aside.
Hard to muster outrage here at anyone other than the NHL, which mismanaged itself into this position throughout the '90s and the first half of this decade.
Next page: Once you accept nicheness, there are benefits. It's kinda clubby!
