David Slays Goliath, Cementing Round Two Schedule

Last night’s stunning victory by the Montreal Canadiens over the heavily favoured Washington Capitals allowed television networks on both sides of the border to confirm their broadcast schedules for the second round.

As much as the Canadiens-Capitals series and seventh-game theatrics were a dream come true for specialty channel TSN in terms of first round ratings, the Canadiens victory in game seven combined with the Canucks earlier win over the Kings will transform into a landslide ratings triumph for CBC in the second round. The public broadcaster has the option to pick which two second round series it wishes to telecast and has selected the Canadiens-Penguins and Canucks-Blackhawks matchups. Look for Bob Cole and Greg Millen to call the Montreal series (beginning Friday at 7 o’clock) and Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson to work the Vancouver games (starting Saturday at 8 o’clock). TSN will cover the Red Wings-Sharks (commencing tonight at 9 o’clock) and Flyers-Bruins (beginning Saturday at 12:30), with the broadcast teams of Gord Miller/Pierre McGuire and Chris Cuthbert/Ray Ferraro.

In the United States, as I previously speculated, NBC’s limited two-game coverage of the second round will abandon both the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks in order to focus on the Eastern Conference matchups of Philadelphia-Boston (Saturday at 12:30) and Montreal-Pittsburgh (Sunday at 2 o’clock). The fact that NBC will televise the Canadiens gives rise to an interesting situation for CBC, which avoided Montreal in the first round so as not to split the Quebec audience with French-language cable channel RDS. Now in the second round, not only will CBC have to contend with RDS, but our public broadcaster will also face competition from NBC, albeit only for one game. Even more intriguing is that Pierre McGuire, who covered the entire Canadiens-Capitals series for TSN, will now work the Canadiens-Penguins on NBC. Montreal fans who enjoyed McGuire’s analysis in the first round may very well decide to stick with him, albeit, again, only for one game. RDS, of course, will continue its wall-to-wall Canadiens coverage for the entire series with Pierre Houde, Benoît Brunet, Alain Crête, and Jacques Demers. Nonetheless, look for very high ratings on CBC for both its second round series.

TONIGHT’S GAME:
Red Wings at Sharks – Game 1, 9 p.m. (TSN)/(RDS)