It's CBC, Before and After the Game

If I've said it a thousand times, well then it deserves to be said one more time.

The CBC understands the attachment that many fans have to the game. Whenever you catch the bug, you're hooked on the game, it's players and how they view the game. You want to see the game through their eyes. I do not care what the talking heads at NBC say most of the time, and this is quite true when the handshake line is going on and NBC interrupts that footage for more replays and much to much yap from Doc and Pierre.

But over at the CBC, they bring the fans closer to the players and their emotions, before and after the game. And with that, it also allows fans to confront their own emotions about the game.



That is good television. I am happy that NBC and the NBC Sports Network have the NHL contract in the United States. The league is in much better hands than Fox Sports or ESPN. But the NBC family would do well to study the production effort at both TSN and CBC before and after the game. Keep this in mind as you watch these videos. Consider how much you remember about the postgame effort by NBC and the NBC Sports Network last night.

What's that? You don't remember it? Exactly.

This effort from CBC is one you will remember.

Striking the Right Balance

A a loss for words after Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final.

These 6-5 games are the ones that everyone seems to enjoy. That is, everyone but the coach, who is fearful of losing the game and his job, and the GM, who has similar career insecurities.

But the wide-open game, one we were treated to regularly in the 1980s, is an important counterbalance in the National Hockey League.

As much as I enjoyed seeing the Kings win last year with quick passes and a crushing, opportunistic forecheck scheme, the headlong rushes have their place in the game. To have the leading practitioners of the two dominant systems in the finals makes perfect sense. This meeting of two opposite minds, hopefully, will incite some greater coaching minds to create a hybrid that can both display the physical and the skilled.

Remember the Buffalo Sabres coming out of the 2004-5 lockout? They had all the speed and very little of the grit to hold up through a four-round tournament like the Stanley Cup playoffs.

So, enjoy what we are seeing now, and hope that we see more of the same, or nearly the same, from all 30 teams next October.

I'll Have What They're Having

Another stellar start to the Stanley Cup Finals, from Hockey Night in Canada's opening video to the moments when, around 2:30 am, I got a few kind licks from my dog Jax as I was cleaning up the room after a full night of hockey, replays, reviews and all the talk shows that are broadcast once the game finishes.

Jax was either saying he missed me, or maybe he was saying thanks for the full, fun night of hockey.

Either way, he and I went to bed happy. Chicago 4. Boston 3. Triple Overtime. Game 1. Sounds like a good night blessing to me.

There will be more later today, but just for fun, go ahead and replay the video and take in the full sound of "Live Forever" by Oasis. These are good days, my friend. Don't miss a second.