I’m sure all of you were mighty impressed with Paul’s posting earlier this morning that Versus drew a record 1.7 rating for Sunday night’s Pens-Flyers game, to the tune of 2.3 Million viewers.  I’d like to take you a little deeper with some of these numbers, to show you how impressive the NHL’s “drawing power” was on the network no one can seem to find on Sunday night.

This might be an interesting one.  Here we go with the new-ish host of VERSUS’ “Hockey Central” studio show.

Throughout his 25-year broadcasting career, Patrick has hosted SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight on ESPN, College Football Sunday on NFL Network, and various other shows.  From 1998-2006, he was a play-by-play man and reporter for the PGA Tour on USA Network.  This is his first hockey-centric job.

So, what do you think of what Bill Patrick is doing?

Every night of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, “Eye on the Media” writer Steve Lepore will keep you updated on the complicated ordeal that is finding your favorite game on the tube.

From Some Nobody Guest Posting at “Puck Daddy” on Yahoo:

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today—and without sounding too much like John Buccigross—to get through this thing called the New York Rangers, 2007-08 edition.

The writer, er, daddy of this blog wrote back in 2006 that the New York Rangers had become a team with no one left to hate. He said they had “suddenly morphed into something - gulp - likeable.” Well, nearly 19 months later, it’s safe to say the Rangers went out of their way to change that. During the 2006-07 season, they went out and acquired professional herpes dumpster Sean Avery. Maybe it’s not fair to associate classy players such as transvestite-lover Brendan Shanahan or total douche Jaromir Jagr with Avery, but they made their bed and slept in it—likely with prostitutes, if I know Sean.

Enjoy more of the musings from this crazy “Yahoo!”: 

From Brian Duff’s THN.com Blog:

What did Chris Osgood do to warrant this lack of respect?

Is it possible that in three short weeks he’ll be hoisting the Cup for a third time, perhaps with a record of 15-0, and there will still be a significant collection of fans and media alike suggesting he is only a winner by association?

Look, I’m the first to admit there were many times when the Osgood/No Good punch line seemed to roll off the tongue with great regularity, but isn’t it time we all got over some of the past long-range shots and bad goals that are part of every goaltender’s career?

More:

From Barry Horn’s Dallas Stars Blog:

Well, there was an itty-bitty up-tick in Dallas-Fort Worth TV ratings for Saturday’s Game 2 of the Western Conference Final.

The game scored a 1.3 rating on Versus here. That’s up 18 percent from the series opener.
In terms of homes that’s 31,663 homes up from 26,792.

Meanwhile in Detroit, aka Hockeytown USA, the rating dropped from an 8.1 for the opener to a 6.9. That’s a fall from 155,966 homes to 132,860 homes.

If both trends continue, DFW should out-rate Detroit by Game 33 of the series.

Remember, Detroit area viewers had access to CBC for Game 2, which they did not for Game 1.  That may explain the viewership drop.

I could pretty much leave the title like this and get about 65 different opinions.  That said, Mr. Cole has been calling hockey games since 1969 on CBC Radio.  He’s been the lead voice of Hockey Night in Canada forever, and has done play-by-play for at least part of the Stanley Cup Finals since 1981.

That said, these days Cole seems to have many detractors for his inability to pronounce names and flat-out follow the play.  For my money, his game was more anticipating the play, and he still is very good at that.  The game will not sound nearly the same when he is gone.

With all that being put out there, what do you think of Bob Cole?

From Michael McCarthy at USA Today:

The NHL and cable TV partner Versus are talking about introducing “puck-tracking” technology as early as the 2008-09 season, executives from the network and the league told USA TODAY.

Tracking would make it easier for TV viewers to follow the fast-moving puck. But the idea brought back memories of Fox’s “glowing puck” experiment from 1996-98. It got mixed reviews, with some players and coaches complaining the internal electronics of the “FoxTrax” puck made it play differently. When ABC picked up the NHL’s broadcast rights in 1998, the idea was junked.

More, and Didn’t somebody write a book about how badly this failed the first time?

Wyshynski has more on the topic.

Interested in getting the pulse of the fans on this topic, vote now…

Every night of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, “Eye on the Media” writer Steve Lepore will keep you updated on the complicated ordeal that is finding your favorite game on the tube.

Every night of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, “Eye on the Media” writer Steve Lepore will keep you updated on the complicated ordeal that is finding your favorite game on the tube.

Don on Pens-Flyers, and of course, that ugly redneck town known as Detroit, Michigan.

Check out the video:

Since it’s fun to liveblog ANYTHING, I’m going to do a minute-by-minute liveblog of Don Cherry’s first ever ESPN appearance.  I imagine it’ll last about… oh, 7 minutes tops:

11:51 PM: As the show - SportsCenter I should remind you - opens, good ol’ John Buccigross reminds us that Don Cherry is making his ESPN debut tonight.

11:52 PM: SportsCenter goes ahead and… starts off with hoops.  We may be here a while.

11:54 PM: Grapes is probably wondering who Mike Tirico is, despite appearing on his radio show yesterday.

11:56 PM: I really didn’t think this post would require a jump, but we’re headed there, as ESPN continues on basketball.  See how I’m totally making a point about something here?