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Are you ready for some ... hockey?

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 5, 2001

Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s Hockey Night in Canada is the Canadian equivalent of Monday Night Football, a buzz-producing event that showcases the best matchup of the week. Hockey doesn't have nearly the following in the United States, but ESPN is betting there are more fans out there than the dismal regular-season ratings reflect.

The network's solution: Wednesday Night Hockey.

So the name's not original. But the concept is, at least in this country and for this sport.

"Our philosophy in the past has been, 'We want one game and we don't want any other games being played,' " said Mark Quenzel, ESPN's senior vice president for programming. "We've completely turned that around."

The network asked the NHL to schedule several other compelling matchups on Wednesday nights so it can provide more leaguewide coverage, including highlights, features and analysis. Viewers saw some of these things in ESPN's old National Hockey Night, but the coverage focused more on a single game and the scheduling was inconsistent.

The show premiered Wednesday. The first few weeks will probably be "a little bit different," Quenzel said, as the network covers hockey's response to the terrorist attacks. But eventually, he said, fans can expect the kind of in-depth coverage ESPN has lacked in the past.

Though the concept was two years in the making, it's partly due to ratings that have been disappointing for ESPN and abysmal for ABC, which shares NHL broadcast rights.

"It's a response to it a little bit," Quenzel said. "I look at it and say (there's) the consistency factor; people don't know where to find it. And we haven't really put the best product out there day in and day out."

He said airing hockey on Wednesdays is a natural extension of the successful Wednesday Night Baseball series. Of ESPN's 27 regular-season NHL games, 24 of them will be on Wednesday nights.

ESPN2 will air 75 games, the bulk of them on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. (The Lightning is not scheduled to appear on Wednesday nights this season, or on national television any other time for that matter.)

HOCKEY 24/7: The NHL will be launching the Hockey Channel in about a week, starting in Canada. Requests for technical changes by the partner Canadian Broadcasting Corporation pushed the scheduled premiere back 10 days, but officials promise it will soon be available to digital cable and satellite subscribers in Canada. It is not yet available in the United States, but the NHL plans future expansion southward.

FINE TUNING: ABC's coverage begins Jan. 5 with five weeks of regional programming leading to the All-Star game in February. It will pick up again late in the second half of the season. ... Sunshine Network's Erin Andrews this season becomes the Lightning's first rinkside reporter, joining announcers Rick Peckham and Bobby " The Chief" Taylor. Sunshine's Lightning Weekly has been incorporated into Sunshine Network LIVE and will air at 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays. ... DirecTV's NHL Center Ice offers subscribers up to 35 out-of-market games during the regular season, as well as select first- and second-round Stanley Cup playoff games.

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