Kukla's Korner Hockey
ESPN Founder Can’t Find Hockey
by Paul on 09/12/09 at 07:58 AM ET
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from Bruce Dowbiggin of the Globe and Mail,
As another NHL season gears up, the pioneer of sports cable TV in the United States wonders where hockey has gone in his country. “I used to watch all the hockey with John Buccigross and Barry Melrose on ESPN,” says Bill Rasmussen, who founded the innovative cable network 30 years ago this month with his son, Scott. “I can’t tell you where to find hockey right now. It’s sad.
“I can’t help but think [the NHL] is missing something in walking away from [ESPN]. Look what ESPN does for Major League Baseball on Baseball Tonight – wall-to-wall, full-season coverage of the entire season and playoffs. The NHL had that ancillary programming on ESPN and just walked away from it. I just don’t understand.”...
“The NHL just died in the United States the first time they left ESPN for SportsChannel [in 1988-89]. Then they came back to ESPN. Now they’re with Comcast, and people don’t know where to find them. I think they’ve struggled to get a handle on what ESPN is, whether they think there are too many demands from a schedule point of view. I don’t know. It’s become a lot more complicated than it used to be, that’s for sure.”
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