Sabres Out, Sens Wait For West Winner

So Ottawa defeated the Sabres this past Saturday, advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals. They are awaiting the winner of the Detroit-Anaheim series. Game 6 is tonight with Anaheim holding a 3 games to 2 edge in the series right now. What was noteworthy about Saturday's game, I thought, was a person got to see the commitment that NBC has to the NHL. Of course the Preakness was also on Saturday and the hockey game goes into overtime. NBC decided to end coverage of the NHL game as it was scheduled and go to their Preakness coverage - of course the actual horse race wouldn't be ran for another hour and half (at least). Name one other sport that any network would drop it's television coverage of to join another event...and then add the fact that this was a conference final game! Of course this should be to no surprise... NBC opted to carry ZERO playoff games the previous weekend and showed the TPC golf event. Very evident that NBC is only interested in having the games on a weekend afternoon rather then break up it's prime time weekend schedule.

How low has your sport gotten when you can't even give the networks a great, overtime conference playoff game and they will drop their coverage to show you an hour or 2 of pre-race hype for the Preakness? I was just glad I have VS and was able to watch the end of the game. One has to think that NBC is already cringing at Ottawa making the finals and I am almost certain the network big-wigs are keeping their fingers crossed for Detroit to pull through and make the finals as well. I can see the headlines already if the finals are Ottawa-Anaheim: "Lowest NHL finals in history." But NBC has itself to blame... a person only got to see Detroit, the Rangers, Colorado or Dallas play on the very few games NBC even aired. Then you add the fact that VS is in about 10 homes in America and the NHL finals are being played in June you then have the recipe for people to not care.