SueNJ97

Emo.

No, nobody except me has commented on a thing in the article except the parking lot line, which tells me it's not a thing that should be up on this site. They can't see anything but that line. I made an error in posting it.

So true...

"The Yankee captain does have the edge in one area -- his championships resulted in parades through the Canyon of Heroes. Mr. Brodeur's were celebrated in a parking lot."

Please tell me what that has to do with ANYTHING????????????

I'm not thrilled with that either. But Marty was given space in a publication that rarely gives any notice to hockey and his career was compared favorably - in fact was lauded compared to Jeter's. But, if you guys are going to get this upset about the parking lot metnion, can someone remove the post, please???? I put it up, can one of the site moderators remove it?

Is this in today's WSJ, Sue?

Yes. In Sports. It was posted late last night. No sure if it is in the print version, I only have the on-line version.

There is far too much emotionality in this thread for this argument to be rational.

ESPN is not my favorite channel, but it is the hub of sports. If the NHL can get a better contract out of them (when games are played, how they are presented, ancillary coverage), it will be better for the sport which has grown DESPITE Versus, the student film of sports channels.

The NHL returning to ESPN will be a benefit to the sport. Anyone who believes that it's better off on channel six-hundred-and-fvcking-four needs to pour themselves another drink.

They were promised this before and ESPN broke almost every promise. But, I will admit, ESPN did it for a reason. The way ESPN used to justify their coverage of the NHL was that it delivered one key demographic. Despite the continual low ratings (and they were always low, they just became lower as it went along) the sport used to attract a solid, coveted demo in decent numbers: white men 18-29. Around the year 2000, this demo started to watch less and less TV, inlcuding cable (if it wasn't movie channels, basiaclly, anything that had commercials) and, if they did watch it, they were early adapters to TiVo. ESPN lost any reason to carry the sport. It lost the only reason it had to sell the sport to advertisers.

You will recall the last campaign ESPN used to try to attract viewers. It certainly wasn't trying to attract 'casual' sports fans. No casual sports fan was going to see the 'Hockey Falls' ad execution, which portrayed hockey's rabid fans (and their own ESPN announcers) as hicks and idiots and basically said - "look everyone, here's our core audience and the people who announce our games, join us, why don't you - watch the NHL" and go anywhere near the sport. Yep, that was the way ESPN decided to go out and sell the NHL to the casual fan near the end of the contract. That, and not giving the game a regular night. And laughing at it - when they discussed it at all - on any other ESPN programming.

ESPN now has Monday Night Football, the NBA (and, as part of that contract, they have contractual obligations that they cannot break to the WNBA and believe me, they give a damn about not breaking the NBA contract - they don't give a sh*t about not breaking an NHL contract), MLB, men's college baskeball, women's college basketball (and thus, at some level, both tournaments, which is they have it), college football, plus a sh*t-load of other stuff. Where are they going to program the NHL? Oh, right, they'll do what they did before. Shove it in wherever they can fit it, which was part of the problem, and it will die, just like it did before.

And, if you really think ESPN is going to give up a college bowl game on News Years day just because this year the Winter Classic outdrew some of the bowl games, it isn't happening. If, somehow, this were to wind up on ESPN, I guarantee you, it suddenly wouldn't be what it is now, good alternative programming for people who are bored by the lackluster bowl games now on New Year's day, ESPN will make them move the game, and ruin it.

Maxpower, you said you don't trust Martin. Is it that you don't think he'll stay healthy, or you just don't think a team with Martin as the top defender (and he is the best D-man we have) is going to win anything?