Disjointed Third Round

Of the three rounds played so far in this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, the third round has been, by far, the most awkward for viewers and broadcasters – particularly in regards to the Blackhawks-Sharks Western Final. The series lasted the minimum four games but managed to rotate between three different broadcasters and three different start times, of which only one was in prime time. The complete audience ratings haven’t been disseminated yet, but it’s a good bet the numbers will be all over the place.

In terms of broadcasters, TSN had the rights to the first three games of the series and the specialty channel announced that it would use Chris Cuthbert and Pierre McGuire to call the action. But this wasn’t entirely accurate because NBC televised the first game in the U.S. and, for whatever reason, whenever NBC televises a game for which TSN holds the Canadian rights, TSN uses the NBC feed. So viewers in Canada got NBC’s Mike Emrick and Ed Olczyk for game one, TSN’s Chris Cuthbert and Pierre McGuire for games two and three, and then the series shifted to CBC where Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson called the action for game four. Hughson and Simpson would have continued to work the remainder of the series had it not been a sweep but, with the Blackhawks winning in four straight games, the top duo at Hockey Night in Canada was limited to calling only one game in the third round – and it was an afternoon contest to boot - not exactly a ratings bonanza for CBC.

Speaking of afternoon contests, the Blackhawks-Sharks series had two of them. In fact, the series comprised more afternoon games than prime time telecasts: Game one was on a Sunday afternoon (not good for TSN's ratings), game two a late night Tuesday (not good for TSN's ratings), game three a prime time Friday (much better for TSN's ratings), and game four back to a Sunday afternoon (back to poor ratings - this time for CBC). Throw in another afternoon contest for game four of the Canadiens-Flyers series (again, bad for CBC), juxtaposed against prime time starts for its other four contests (much better for CBC), and everyone had to have been scratching their heads as to why there wasn’t more consistency with start times. In all fairness to the NHL, the remainder of the third round was all scheduled to be played in prime time and promised to deliver a string of large audiences – the only problem was that both series were over too quickly for any of these games to actually get played. And so, don’t be surprised if the ratings we see in a few days aren’t quite as strong as those to which we have grown accustom - they certainly won't be consistent.

TONIGHT'S GAMES:
No games scheduled