The day after New Year’s always has people dragging back to work and today is certainly no exception. So many things I don’t want to do, but we have to get back into the grind. To be honest, I would prefer New Year’s to fall on a Friday or Monday, but it only happens once every four years or so depending if there’s a Leap Year. What am I talking about? I have no idea. Let’s just get to the links.
In his blog, Newsday’s Neil Best has a good critique of yesterday’s NHL Winter Classic on NBC. I agree with a lot of it. I do wish CBC’s coverage of the event was available on the NHL Center Ice package to compare. I also felt NBC dumped out too quickly after Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal in the shootout. Getting some perspective from the game from Bob Costas and Mike Milbury would have been appreciated, but I guess NBC wanted to get to that taped figure skating coverage.
Alan Pergament from the Buffalo News says yesterday’s outdoor game telecast on NBC could not have gone better from the network’s perspective. And the overnight ratings for the NHL Winter Classic in Buffalo were quite high.
The New York Times’ Richard Sandomir loved the NHL outdoor game.
USA Today’s Michael Hiestand says the elements gave the NHL outdoor game a great setting, but it will still get low ratings.
The Toronto Globe and Mail’s William Houston must have been in a bad mood yesterday because he hated the quality of hockey during the NHL Winter Classic, but liked the quality of TV coverage on CBC and NBC.
Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated says the fans made the experience of the outdoor game exciting.
Yesterday, I linked to a blog post from the Baltimore Sun’s Ray Frager speculating that former Ravens coach Brian Billick could be headed to TV. Well, the DC/Baltimore Examiner’s Jim Williams writes in his blog that Billick to TV could be reality sooner than thought.
Speaking of Frager, he blogs that he watched hockey yesterday and enjoyed it.
John Consoli of Adweek talks about the ratings for Patriots-Giants and what it meant for the networks that aired it. Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life Magazine also writes a story on the ratings. Tim Lemke of the Washington Times says the NFL has no time for losers.
Maury Brown from the Biz of Baseball has an interview with President and CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media Bob Bowman.
Rob Oller of the Columbus Dispatch tells us why the BCS Championship Game is being played on a Monday this year.
Rob Gray of the Des Moines Register profiles Fox Sports’ and Speed Channel’s Krista Voda who works NASCAR and occasional football games.
John Stewart from the Mississuaga News (Canada) talks about the memorial service for the late Don Chevrier.
The National Post of Canada gives us the entire sporting calendar for 2008 so you can either bookmark the site or copy and paste the story into your Microsoft Word. Rick Kaipust of the Omaha (NE) World-Herald reports that 2008 will be a big sporting year for the city, not just for the annual College World Series, but for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and other events.
Ok, I have to get some work done. Back later.
