A Weekday Afternoon in Europe

Yesterday’s blog took a look at how poorly afternoon hockey games perform on Canadian television in comparison with more traditional evening timeslots. But at least the daytime games we love to hate are weekend games – could you imagine how silly it would be for the NHL to schedule afternoon contests during the work week? And yet, that’s exactly what’s going to happen next season. This time, instead of the villain being U.S. broadcaster NBC, it’s the 2010 Compuware NHL Premiere Games – otherwise known as the league’s annual trip to Europe to open the regular season.

Some background: In 2007, as a way to test the viability of potential expansion franchises in Europe, the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks played a pair of weekend games in London to kick-off the NHL calendar. In 2008, the experiment was expanded to include four games – two in Stockholm between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators, and two in Prague between the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning. The pattern continued in 2009 with another four games on the European slate – two in Stockholm between the Detroit Red Wings and St. Louis Blues, and two in Helsinki between the Florida Panthers and Chicago Blackhawks. To open next season, the NHL has its most ambitious plans yet – a trio of two-game series in Helsinki, Stockholm, and Prague – bringing the total to six games.

The problem with all of this is when to schedule the games in light of significant time zone differences between Europe and each of the team’s fan bases in North America. In past seasons, the league opted to play in Europe on Saturday and Sunday evening, meaning that the games would air live on North American television on weekend afternoons. But with next year’s voyage involving three series instead of two, there isn’t enough time to squeeze all the games into a single weekend of coverage. So, if you’re a fan of the Carolina Hurricanes or Minnesota Wild and want to watch your team on television opening its season in Helskini, you’re going to have to tune-in on a Thursday afternoon in October. Game two of the series will go the next day on Friday. And if you’re a fan of the Columbus Blue Jackets or the San Jose Sharks, your series will start on the same Friday afternoon – of course it will be more like Friday morning in California – before concluding the next day on Saturday. The only European visitors that will be spared weekday afternoon games are the Boston Bruins and Phoenix Coyotes (or, as may be the case, Winnipeg Jets), both of which will play in Prague on Saturday and Sunday.

So why should fans of other teams and their broadcasters care about the plight of four teams for one or two days? Because this could easily be your team in a few years – and for more than one or two days per season. If the NHL ever decides to place franchises in European cities, weekend afternoon games for the North American audience would be unavoidable. No matter how great permanent European hockey could be for the NHL (which is something that I seriously dispute), the time zome issue alone would be extremely frustrating and inconvenient for hockey fans on this side of the Atlantic and a complete ratings disaster for North American broadcasters. Let’s hope the NHL arrives at this conclusion while its European adventure is still only in experimentation mode.

TONIGHT'S GAME:
Flyers at Canadiens - Game 3, 7 p.m. (CBC)/(RDS)