Moving the Winter Classic is exactly why the NHL will always be a niche sport in America. The NHL doesn't have the balls to go against any other sport. As soon as any hockey game is scheduled against another sport, the NHL walks itself into a corner with its tail between its legs.
@@skyhound7661 it's more due to networks than anything. That's the problem. We wanted on espn so badly, well espn has other leagues they broadcast for as well that they make more money from.
On the poor classic scheduling - not to mention the fact that 90% of ppl in America work on a week day regardless of it being 12/31. Put it on 1/1 or a weekend day.
Spurgeon just came back after missing 63 games i think last yr. Had back and hip surgery. That was the dirtiest hit ive seen since the todd bertuzzi sucker punch on steve moore like 20yrs ago
My brother and I are big hockey fans and we had no clue Winter Classic was changed this year to New Years Eve instead of New Years Day. Well done NHL, way to attract more fans and keep existing ones in the dark.
I'm surprised that L'Heureux is going to only get 5 games or less for that. That looked pretty egregious. Well, unless you're a Nashville broadcaster. Their feed was "That look like a slew foot to you, Jack?" part 2
I could not agree more about the "scheduling out of fear". I didn't know the Winter Classic was on until the night before, and that's only because I looked to see if the Avs were playing yesterday. The funniest part for me was that this was advertised as the "2025 Winter Classic", but the logo on the ice said "2024 Winter Classic". The organizers had no idea what was going on.
"Minnesota fans won't be happy" That is an understatement. L'Heureux did not commit a slewfoot, he committed a double slewfoot when he got his left knee under both legs of Spurgeon while wrapping his stick and arm in front. I suspect the phone hearing is due to Zack appearing to keep his eyes on the puck the entire time until Trenin pushed him off of the puck/Spurgeon. The only argument that can be made is that the players were playing the puck and momentum caused them to get "tangled up." Hopefully that excuse doesn't work and he at least gets 5 games. Momentum may have caused his leg to get wrapped up, which he should have felt, but there is not excuse for wrapping his body and stick around a player that he is behind. The correct way for him to handle that play was to let Spurgeon play the puck, then make a hit after Spurgeon is safely up against the boards or skating away.
@@aaronberg221 The way Spurgeon's leg wrapped back like that was hard to watch. I personally figure intent shouldn't matter, because you should need to be mindful along the boards period. That kind of contact potentially ends their season (or worse) and puts their entire career on hold for very little reward. Start sending the message that's not okay by getting serious with those hearings.
There's a weird law in the US, the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, that actually prevents the NFL from playing on Fridays and Saturdays from most of September through mid-December, to protect attendance at high school and college football games. But if they could, you know they absolutely would schedule games all over the week.
To add to what you said about the Winter Classic, it also made no sense because not everyone is off on Dec 31st & it was during work hours too for most.
He was a menace in the AHL, as well. Last year, he sucker-punched Colton Dach, giving him a concussion. This happened after Dach confronted him over being tripped a few seconds earlier. I'm sure that's not the only such incident in the AHL with this clown .
100% love that advice for Canadian hockey fans about the world juniors. I get the passion, I think we all do, but Canadian fans bring so much negative energy toward their own young teams when they don't pull out the win. No one is forgetting that hockey is Canada's thing, or that Canadian players still dominate, and the higher level of competition coming in from other teams is definitely a good thing. Gotta say though, USA's goal song definitely slaps this tourny.
Every sport schedules their big games around other sports, it isn't unique to hockey. But i don't understand why there were alot of games on the same day.
I’m a bigger soccer fan than hockey but I’ve become more of a hockey fan partially because of this channel. I can relate with Major League Soccer being an afterthought but admittedly they aren’t the elite soccer league in the world, where as NHL is for hockey
I was watching the winter classic on the NHL network (wondering why it was on that station), thinking it was live… Then I saw this video and realized it was a rerun
Ppl will blame the NHL for everything but never once think about blaming the boardcasting networks. There one game today and of course its the Devils 41st game...
I'm not fan of either team that played in the Winter Classic, but I have multiple TV in my home and one of them would have definitely been tuned in to that game, while I watched the college football playoffs.
Winter Classic: Personally, I didn't care enough about two bad teams (one which keeps getting outdoor games) to watch. Doesn't matter what day it's on.
@@deltadovertime I disagree. You can't have a sport with legal violence and then be surprised when something goes very wrong. What Bertuzzi did wasn't a unique act but it did have an unfortunate outcome. Many many guys were lucky. Moore got lucky. His elbowing of Naslund could have led to a worse injury.
@@deltadovertime sure but what happens when you commit a weak penalty with no intent to injure and it’s a player in his 40s who now can’t play because of some simple shoulder injury does that mean the player should never play a game again. As for the bertuzzi case 100% but it can’t be like that always
I went to the Winter Classic last year and was looking forward to watching it this year. My brain just said it was a New Year's Day event... NHL really blew it with this one.
The scheduling may be a choice of the network and not the NHL. I don't know for them but I do work around college football and time slots are often set by the networks carrying the game. Again, I don't know this to be the case but I imagine it could definitely be a factor
CFB was a factor in the choice for the Winter Classic. 3 quarterfinals today, with the overall audience for the Winter Classic dropping for some years now, more so after going to TNT, battling the CFB playoffs would be a suicide. However, they could've chose january the 4th for the game, there is only one serious NFL game saturday
The WC scheduling was so horrible. I said before it happened that it would probably be the lowest rated so far. Afternoon start time on what is a workday for most people, on cable in the US, a mediocre team vs an awful team, and a bunch of other games scheduled on top of that. The NHL gambled on the Bedard hype from last year and lost. Pretty sad that the league thinks so little of it's own premiere regular season game that they bury it themselves.
That was an agregious penalty, should have been an in person hearing , that is about one of the most dangerous plays in hockey Was it his intent to hurt him, no , but you can't ever be making that play
"It's ok for other countries to be really good at hockey." I found this funny because there are definitely a lot of fans who don't have this mentality and are national gatekeepers lol.
I agree with you on the scheduling and the Winter Classic, and I would add on that the advertising for that game is practically non-existent. At least in my experience I only saw commercials for it when I was already watching NHL games on ESPN+ and even then I only saw like 2-3 total ads.
Your thoughts in scheduling is 100% what I've been saying for years. I'm not going to watch other sports generally, stop making it harder to watch the one league I actively support
I've always said the NHL should movie to a summer sport and only compete against baseball and golf. Not to mention,when it's 110° in Texas,a hockey game would be a good way to cool off. And I didn't know the game was on either.
The nfl will sometimes flex games into different time slots throughout sundays games, I’m a packers fan and the game was originally scheduled beginning of the year at 12, and it was flexed into the 425 kickoff time due to how big the result of the game was for playoff seeds and Minnesota is still trying to win the nfc north division
Moving the Winter Classic is probably the biggest idea for them, but we really need to discuss why the Blackhawks continue to be given a spot in the game despite being one of the worst teams in the league the last couple years now. It'd be one thing if they were coming into their own, but they're still a low-end team and their star Bedard is in a current weird slump, yet they keep getting a spot.
Last night I being a Stars fan absolutely loved the atmosphere at the New Years Eve game, way better than any of the other pro sports games I have been to which is all of them. That being said I don't think outdoor stadium games work. The fans are far away , not near as loud. Outdoor weather can suck and I know there is something cool about outdoor as that is where we all learned to skate but is it practical? Happy New Year THG and followers!
Thanks for the video! Hearings are good as they draw attention to the infraction. Deserving stars! Bye-bye, Coyotes! Schenn did the right thing rather taking a cheap shot at some point but Foligno has a piston for a right arm. All for naught, though, as the Blues crushed the Blackhawks anyway. Fowler had a nice milestone, a goal in his 1,000th game. Sad about the need for an MRI on Spurgeon. Even the Devils and Sharks only have 40 games, so there's a lot of hockey left to play. All leagues schedule to maximize advertising dollars. NHL team valuations are at an all-time high, so clearly they are doing something right. WJuniors Jan 2nd, let's pick Germany, Latvia, USA, Finland, and Canada.
I 100% agree with you regarding the Winter Classic. I didn’t realize it was on as I was expecting and looking forward to it to being played by itself today, New Year’s Day. That makes it a special event. I have no interest in college football. The game also needs to be televised on each country’s main broadcast network (ESPN+ in the USA). I’m fed up with a million subscriptions needed to follow my favorite sport. Thanks for speaking your mind. You are not alone.
I will say this right now, as a NASCAR fan who's seen similar scheduling botches for years now - the NHL is not scheduling out of fear, it is having its schedule dictated to it by TV networks who don't want schedule overlap with different sports leagues they have the rights to (and also probably the NFL). NASCAR has had its races pushed much later into the afternoon because its partners, especially NBC, don't want overlap with their rights to European soccer leagues as well as, sometimes, other racing leagues. This was the case even when Comcast Universal had multiple sports networks, most of which no longer exist because of rights issues. Keep in mind, NASCAR races frequently during the summer, when much of the United States is subject to late afternoon thunderstorms. Launching the races at 1pm would give them a much better window to avoid those storms. Too bad the NFL kicks off at 1pm in the fall, and the Premier League feature game usually ends around 2pm [thinks the NBC and Fox execs who care more about ad revenue than airing full races]. The NFL moves the Super Bowl back a week? Well, NASCAR should just compact Daytona Speedweeks into five days (used to be ten days) and move the Clash to another site two weeks before the 500! That was almost certainly a directive from Fox, which has a direct conflict of interest from their NFL stake. NASCAR is at the point where the TV partners are literally ordering races to be prematurely ended to avoid pre-empting LOCAL NEWS BROADCASTS, because an aggregation of nothing is apparently higher rated than what they think a race would pull in at that hour if they restart it five minutes after the plug got pulled. Not that you'll see headlines about this, the fans got lied to and told that "at track humidity" was hindering track drying efforts. (Nice try, we saw the track drying, it would've been good to go in a few minutes.). Oh, and this wasn't an ordinary race it happened to, it was the longest race of the year. Which was on Memorial Day Weekend. This is NASCAR's second biggest weekend of the year. (Behind only President's Day Weekend, when the Daytona 500 is held, and will be until Fox tells NASCAR they have to move it to make room for the Super Bowl because Roger Goodell wants to expand the NFL schedule to 18 games but doesn't want to start the season earlier). This is only going to get worse for NHL the longer Bettman rolls over and accepts second-class treatment from networks that are either too cowardly to let the league sink or swim on its own merits, or have direct conflicts of interest from the remainder of their sports packages and have decided the NHL isn't relevant enough to have any real days to itself, even for just one game. I would've watched the Winter Classic if it was on New Year's Day. Heck, I would've watched it on New Year's Eve (and was aware it had been moved), but it was either that or the Penguins game later that night because I have to share the main TV with my mom, and was also busy cooking for my nephew (who slept over that night) when the Classic was actually on. Good job, Turner, your cowardice drove away someone who actually wanted to watch your mediocre product on the day you selected for it.
Quick question Shannon; can you tell us what team started the drop pass from the centre line to the defense? I see the teams using it in the World Junior tournament now. Happy New year.
You are not the only person to watch hockey. I watched the Wild take on the Press last night. I don't care if the NFL, NCAAF or NBA is playing ........I'm watching hockey. Why? Because it is a better, more exciting sport to watch and I have thought so since the first time I saw a hockey game back in the late 1960's with the San Diego Gulls taking on.........who can remember that far back? But I fell in love with it.
I completely agree that the scheduling for this outdoor game and pretty much everything else is stupid. The NHL season needs to start a month earlier and the playoffs end a month earlier.
I love feisty THG. NBA was the only league that played on Christmas Day aside from a few minor bowl games and this year the NFL decided to play on Christmas Day as well. So I don't know why the NHL doesn't schedule the Winter Classic on New Years Day
My suspicion that the WC not being on January 1 was because their US broadcast partner preferred airing college football. And if thst were the case, it's not scheduling out of fear, but out of necessity given tv time on Jan 1 not being available. Now, that said, the WC should have been the only game on Dec 31 and not lost in a 13 game schedule.
to me, the winter classic has the same problem as the all star weekend.. they are trying to sell you too much of the "wow" factor.. "look how great this is, isnt this great, wow!", when its not. i rather watch normal hockey without the faff..
I think that's the main reason the NHL doesn't hype it that much. It's for the fans who go to that game mainly, and then the fans of the two teams playing. Everyone else is a distant third.
I knew that the Winter Classic was on, watched it for a while, but there were also IIHC games going that I I was keeping tabs on. I don't watch NFL games so the Winter Classic could have been today.
If I were a betting man, I'd bet anything the decision on scheduling the Winter Classic was primarily TNT, not the league. After last years ratings for the Seattle-Vegas blowout, I bet TNT made the call. Just as ESPN has forced so many scheduling decisions to keep their NHL coverage from getting in the way of basketball.
The hockey fan vs NCAA fan venn diagram might not overlap as much as people think. For instance, my wife watched the WC a bit yesterday. No way she'd even be in the room if I had football on.
@@tjolsonmcse I think there's more of a baseball/hockey overlap than football/hockey. Maybe that's an old observation because I'm old myself, but I noticed over the years there was kind of a pairing hockey/baseball fan, football/basketball fans. Maybe not true anymore. Of course also hockey/baseball/football fans, which I was till I lost interest in football about 20 years ago.
It makes me so mad how they'll move the Winter Classic because they fear they'll lose viewers because of college football, but they'll happily schedule a Canadian team to play in the afternoon on a weekday where the US has a holiday but not in Canada. I've seen this so often having to miss the Habs playing because it's MLK or American thanksgiving so they're playing at 2PM while I'm at work
I would guess the schedule is mostly decided by the broadcast rights holders and the dollars they pay. In the USA, those broadcasters would likely rather not have NHL games competing with other major sports.
Counterpoint to the winter classic argument, NYE is a common night to have hockey games. My family goes to our local ECHL game on NYE every year. I agree the winter classic deserves more recognition than being 1/13 games on the same day though. Definitely need to be better with the scheduling as a whole though. The TONNES of games on one day, and then nothing the next makes no sense at all to me. No other sport does that. Even the NFL has actually done the opposite and moved away from 90% Sunday games to spread out specialty games throughout the week.
Hot take: the Winter Classic scheduling doesn’t matter because it’s not novel anyway. With more than one outdoor game each year, it’s not like fans are going to miss the experience of they don’t watch one. The fact that it was a meh St. Louis team vs. an awful Blackhawks team, who are playing outside for the 80th time, means it wasn’t must-watch at all. College bowl games draw because they ARE novel, can’t-miss TV for a lot of Americans. Why should I tune in for a regular season divisional game when I 1) have other opportunities to watch outdoor games, 2) have other opportunities to watch the Hawks and Blues play each other, and 3) have already seen this anyway?
The problem I'd have if Canada doesn't at least medal this year let alone win gold is that they have the talent to easily do it they just left half of it at home and would be absolutely embarrassing and shameful on the people who picked the team to have this kind of outcome in a tournament on home soil. Especially in this tournament where most teams brought their best players and still have a weaker team than most years like Finland, Sweden, and Czechia Canada should if they brought the best team easily made the finals
If the NHL wants people to watch the outdoor game, maybe pick a better team than Chicago to host it. Hard to watch a game that they couldn’t even get up for.
Is it “scheduling out of fear” or is it the major broadcast partners (ESPN, etc) saying “you can schedule an important NHL game on this day, but we aren’t going to show it because [whatever] gets better ratings”?
I agree about the winter classic… Moreover, why Blues vs Hawks??? Everyone knew that these teams won’t be relevant for PO spots… and I cannot see any big rivalry between them currently… There are much more attractive teams to have Winter classic… 🤷🏻♂️
The nhl scheduling really is so frustrating. I am a hockey fan. I don’t want to watch basketball or football or whatever else is on that day. I want to watch hockey but the NHL does not respect that hockey fans could possibly want to watch hockey when given the choice.
I 100% agree with your thoughts on the scheduling of the Winter Classic. I have a hard time believing hockey fans didn’t know about it. You have to be one of the most casual fans to not know it. If you’re a bigger football fan, you’re going to watch football over hockey even if it’s an outdoor game. I also think that not only scheduling a lot of games around the winter classic but the winter classic needs to be played at night. And I also don’t see a problem with it being played on a weekend in January where there are no NFL playoff games or college football. I can’t stand football..it’s so boring to me & for the life of me i do not understand it’s as popular as it is, it’s so bewildering to me. I felt this way since I’ve discovered the sport of hockey when I was 11 years old and I’m 46 now. When I was growing up, I used to get super angry about it😂
I didn’t watch the Winter Classic because Chicago needs to not get the Winter Classic for a while. There’s lots of markets NHL. Maybe let a market other than Chicago get to play a Winter Classic.
Regardless of what other sports they are up against, the winter classic needs to have a day of it's own. This is supposed to be a premier NHL event. Something special. I didn't watch because the NHL did no promotion that I saw and it was at dinner time during a work day for my wife and I. We were both home all day on Jan 1 though. Just Dumb.
Surprised there wasn't a player safety hearing on caps player that pinned Carlo on the ice and was punching him in the face... I guess that is just "roughing".
I recall going to see the Blackhawks at Kings on the day of the San Diego/San Francisco Super Bowl in 1995. Two other games (Philadelphia at Montreal; Pittsburgh at Washington) were played according to Hockey Reference web site. Both the Super Bowl and Kings game at the Great Western Forum were blowouts.
Moving the Winter Classic is exactly why the NHL will always be a niche sport in America. The NHL doesn't have the balls to go against any other sport. As soon as any hockey game is scheduled against another sport, the NHL walks itself into a corner with its tail between its legs.
@@skyhound7661 it's more due to networks than anything. That's the problem. We wanted on espn so badly, well espn has other leagues they broadcast for as well that they make more money from.
Shannon talking about the Winter Classic might be the angriest I’ve ever seen him 😂. I completely agree with your points, though
Nah I felt like he's been angrier about the 10-7 Canucks loss to Minnesota last season lol
He's 100% right. That and the fact it isn't even on ESPN plus or some other local network. It's like the NHL doesn't want anyone to watch their games.
It's almost as if the NHL is run by old men who grew up before the 1980s, when you either watched TV live or you never saw it. Oh, wait ....
Can't schedule games on Friday. High School football and all.
On the poor classic scheduling - not to mention the fact that 90% of ppl in America work on a week day regardless of it being 12/31. Put it on 1/1 or a weekend day.
Right!! Tons of people work NYE day. Put it on the bloody holiday!
College football is more important than the winter classic
outdoor game should have been today when there is only one game scheduled
Spurgeon just came back after missing 63 games i think last yr. Had back and hip surgery. That was the dirtiest hit ive seen since the todd bertuzzi sucker punch on steve moore like 20yrs ago
My brother and I are big hockey fans and we had no clue Winter Classic was changed this year to New Years Eve instead of New Years Day. Well done NHL, way to attract more fans and keep existing ones in the dark.
I'm surprised that L'Heureux is going to only get 5 games or less for that. That looked pretty egregious. Well, unless you're a Nashville broadcaster. Their feed was "That look like a slew foot to you, Jack?" part 2
I could not agree more about the "scheduling out of fear". I didn't know the Winter Classic was on until the night before, and that's only because I looked to see if the Avs were playing yesterday. The funniest part for me was that this was advertised as the "2025 Winter Classic", but the logo on the ice said "2024 Winter Classic". The organizers had no idea what was going on.
The NHL should schedule around the world juniors since that's what I'd be watching over the winter classic
I'm with you. If the Winter Classic had been held today, I would've watched it even knowing it was St. Louis and Chicago. But, I'm a hockey fan.
I didn't watch the winter classic. I didn't know that it was on.
Be grateful you didn’t, horrible game
me too
@@jacobcorn7758 The camera was shaky and nauseating. The game itself wasn't that bad to watch though.
How many times they said the word Bedard ? Could have been a really fun drinking game for the first day of the year !
"Minnesota fans won't be happy" That is an understatement. L'Heureux did not commit a slewfoot, he committed a double slewfoot when he got his left knee under both legs of Spurgeon while wrapping his stick and arm in front. I suspect the phone hearing is due to Zack appearing to keep his eyes on the puck the entire time until Trenin pushed him off of the puck/Spurgeon. The only argument that can be made is that the players were playing the puck and momentum caused them to get "tangled up." Hopefully that excuse doesn't work and he at least gets 5 games. Momentum may have caused his leg to get wrapped up, which he should have felt, but there is not excuse for wrapping his body and stick around a player that he is behind. The correct way for him to handle that play was to let Spurgeon play the puck, then make a hit after Spurgeon is safely up against the boards or skating away.
@@aaronberg221 The way Spurgeon's leg wrapped back like that was hard to watch. I personally figure intent shouldn't matter, because you should need to be mindful along the boards period. That kind of contact potentially ends their season (or worse) and puts their entire career on hold for very little reward. Start sending the message that's not okay by getting serious with those hearings.
Happy New Year to THG and all the rest of you as well!
Congrats to Cam Fowler in the Winter Classic. Well done sir.
There's a weird law in the US, the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, that actually prevents the NFL from playing on Fridays and Saturdays from most of September through mid-December, to protect attendance at high school and college football games. But if they could, you know they absolutely would schedule games all over the week.
To add to what you said about the Winter Classic, it also made no sense because not everyone is off on Dec 31st & it was during work hours too for most.
I remember when L'heureux speared a fan on his way off the ice in the Q. This guy has not learned, he's a menace
He was a menace in the AHL, as well. Last year, he sucker-punched Colton Dach, giving him a concussion. This happened after Dach confronted him over being tripped a few seconds earlier. I'm sure that's not the only such incident in the AHL with this clown .
100% love that advice for Canadian hockey fans about the world juniors. I get the passion, I think we all do, but Canadian fans bring so much negative energy toward their own young teams when they don't pull out the win. No one is forgetting that hockey is Canada's thing, or that Canadian players still dominate, and the higher level of competition coming in from other teams is definitely a good thing.
Gotta say though, USA's goal song definitely slaps this tourny.
Thank you Shannon for calling out the schedule. Was terrible and frustrating to move it to New Years Eve.
Every sport schedules their big games around other sports, it isn't unique to hockey. But i don't understand why there were alot of games on the same day.
Happy New Year, Hockey Guy. Thank you for all you do.
MacK and the Finns might be a decent band name...
There was a blockbuster trade in the PWHL yesterday. One of the names traded was Jocelyn Larocque.
Im a hockey guy! I rarely watch football
I’m a bigger soccer fan than hockey but I’ve become more of a hockey fan partially because of this channel. I can relate with Major League Soccer being an afterthought but admittedly they aren’t the elite soccer league in the world, where as NHL is for hockey
I was watching the winter classic on the NHL network (wondering why it was on that station), thinking it was live… Then I saw this video and realized it was a rerun
Ppl will blame the NHL for everything but never once think about blaming the boardcasting networks. There one game today and of course its the Devils 41st game...
I didn't even know the winter classic was on until I checked the highlights.
I'm not fan of either team that played in the Winter Classic, but I have multiple TV in my home and one of them would have definitely been tuned in to that game, while I watched the college football playoffs.
The knuckledragger should be suspended for 10 games at a minimum. That was a dirty AF play that might have ended Spurgeon's career entirely.
Lane hutson was named rookie of the month for December
Dude's a boss, and his brother is lighting it up in the World Js
Winter Classic: Personally, I didn't care enough about two bad teams (one which keeps getting outdoor games) to watch. Doesn't matter what day it's on.
i still hold the unpopular opinion that suspension should reflect the time missed by the injured player.
I’d rate that but there prob has to be a limit
@@adamjanks4966 Todd bertuzzi should have never played a hockey game after what he did to Moore. I’m saying that as a Canucks fan too.
Does this include any time lost due to the evaluation of said injured player?
@@deltadovertime I disagree. You can't have a sport with legal violence and then be surprised when something goes very wrong. What Bertuzzi did wasn't a unique act but it did have an unfortunate outcome. Many many guys were lucky. Moore got lucky. His elbowing of Naslund could have led to a worse injury.
@@deltadovertime sure but what happens when you commit a weak penalty with no intent to injure and it’s a player in his 40s who now can’t play because of some simple shoulder injury does that mean the player should never play a game again. As for the bertuzzi case 100% but it can’t be like that always
I went to the Winter Classic last year and was looking forward to watching it this year. My brain just said it was a New Year's Day event... NHL really blew it with this one.
They blow a lot of things. Professional league run by a bunch of amateurs
The scheduling may be a choice of the network and not the NHL. I don't know for them but I do work around college football and time slots are often set by the networks carrying the game. Again, I don't know this to be the case but I imagine it could definitely be a factor
CFB was a factor in the choice for the Winter Classic. 3 quarterfinals today, with the overall audience for the Winter Classic dropping for some years now, more so after going to TNT, battling the CFB playoffs would be a suicide.
However, they could've chose january the 4th for the game, there is only one serious NFL game saturday
Necas’ star of the month feels like an eternity ago.
Necas has disappeared… guess Ghostisbehere isn’t the only Ghost on the team….
Where’s the hearing for the Vancouver boy who went for the field goal kick on flames players leg last night
The WC scheduling was so horrible. I said before it happened that it would probably be the lowest rated so far. Afternoon start time on what is a workday for most people, on cable in the US, a mediocre team vs an awful team, and a bunch of other games scheduled on top of that. The NHL gambled on the Bedard hype from last year and lost. Pretty sad that the league thinks so little of it's own premiere regular season game that they bury it themselves.
That was an agregious penalty, should have been an in person hearing , that is about one of the most dangerous plays in hockey
Was it his intent to hurt him, no , but you can't ever be making that play
It 100% is intent to injure when it's going to the boards.
Pretty sure doing the exact thing that causes slewfoots is intent, so I disagree with you there. It's also egregious, with an e.
If you know L'Heureux's history then you know it was 100% his intent to hurt Spurgeon. Throw the book at the kid, see if he pulls that shit again.
"It's ok for other countries to be really good at hockey."
I found this funny because there are definitely a lot of fans who don't have this mentality and are national gatekeepers lol.
It blows my mind that football is as big as it is when the actual on field product is no better than other sports.
it's all marketing
@@briangrover873 It's all gambling.
I agree with you on the scheduling and the Winter Classic, and I would add on that the advertising for that game is practically non-existent. At least in my experience I only saw commercials for it when I was already watching NHL games on ESPN+ and even then I only saw like 2-3 total ads.
Your thoughts in scheduling is 100% what I've been saying for years. I'm not going to watch other sports generally, stop making it harder to watch the one league I actively support
Ullmark snubbed but both him and Markstrom had incredible months so can't be too upset
I've always said the NHL should movie to a summer sport and only compete against baseball and golf. Not to mention,when it's 110° in Texas,a hockey game would be a good way to cool off. And I didn't know the game was on either.
Totally agree about the scaredy pants scheduling! It's ridiculous! 🙄
The nfl will sometimes flex games into different time slots throughout sundays games, I’m a packers fan and the game was originally scheduled beginning of the year at 12, and it was flexed into the 425 kickoff time due to how big the result of the game was for playoff seeds and Minnesota is still trying to win the nfc north division
Moving the Winter Classic is probably the biggest idea for them, but we really need to discuss why the Blackhawks continue to be given a spot in the game despite being one of the worst teams in the league the last couple years now. It'd be one thing if they were coming into their own, but they're still a low-end team and their star Bedard is in a current weird slump, yet they keep getting a spot.
Last night I being a Stars fan absolutely loved the atmosphere at the New Years Eve game, way better than any of the other pro sports games I have been to which is all of them. That being said I don't think outdoor stadium games work. The fans are far away , not near as loud. Outdoor weather can suck and I know there is something cool about outdoor as that is where we all learned to skate but is it practical? Happy New Year THG and followers!
Thanks for the video! Hearings are good as they draw attention to the infraction. Deserving stars! Bye-bye, Coyotes! Schenn did the right thing rather taking a cheap shot at some point but Foligno has a piston for a right arm. All for naught, though, as the Blues crushed the Blackhawks anyway. Fowler had a nice milestone, a goal in his 1,000th game. Sad about the need for an MRI on Spurgeon. Even the Devils and Sharks only have 40 games, so there's a lot of hockey left to play. All leagues schedule to maximize advertising dollars. NHL team valuations are at an all-time high, so clearly they are doing something right. WJuniors Jan 2nd, let's pick Germany, Latvia, USA, Finland, and Canada.
As a former Coyote fan, I saw the local media give more coverage to high school football than the NHL.
I 100% agree with you regarding the Winter Classic. I didn’t realize it was on as I was expecting and looking forward to it to being played by itself today, New Year’s Day. That makes it a special event. I have no interest in college football. The game also needs to be televised on each country’s main broadcast network (ESPN+ in the USA). I’m fed up with a million subscriptions needed to follow my favorite sport. Thanks for speaking your mind. You are not alone.
DING! THG hits 335K Subs Whoo Hoo! 😊
I will say this right now, as a NASCAR fan who's seen similar scheduling botches for years now - the NHL is not scheduling out of fear, it is having its schedule dictated to it by TV networks who don't want schedule overlap with different sports leagues they have the rights to (and also probably the NFL). NASCAR has had its races pushed much later into the afternoon because its partners, especially NBC, don't want overlap with their rights to European soccer leagues as well as, sometimes, other racing leagues. This was the case even when Comcast Universal had multiple sports networks, most of which no longer exist because of rights issues. Keep in mind, NASCAR races frequently during the summer, when much of the United States is subject to late afternoon thunderstorms. Launching the races at 1pm would give them a much better window to avoid those storms. Too bad the NFL kicks off at 1pm in the fall, and the Premier League feature game usually ends around 2pm [thinks the NBC and Fox execs who care more about ad revenue than airing full races].
The NFL moves the Super Bowl back a week? Well, NASCAR should just compact Daytona Speedweeks into five days (used to be ten days) and move the Clash to another site two weeks before the 500! That was almost certainly a directive from Fox, which has a direct conflict of interest from their NFL stake.
NASCAR is at the point where the TV partners are literally ordering races to be prematurely ended to avoid pre-empting LOCAL NEWS BROADCASTS, because an aggregation of nothing is apparently higher rated than what they think a race would pull in at that hour if they restart it five minutes after the plug got pulled. Not that you'll see headlines about this, the fans got lied to and told that "at track humidity" was hindering track drying efforts. (Nice try, we saw the track drying, it would've been good to go in a few minutes.). Oh, and this wasn't an ordinary race it happened to, it was the longest race of the year. Which was on Memorial Day Weekend. This is NASCAR's second biggest weekend of the year. (Behind only President's Day Weekend, when the Daytona 500 is held, and will be until Fox tells NASCAR they have to move it to make room for the Super Bowl because Roger Goodell wants to expand the NFL schedule to 18 games but doesn't want to start the season earlier).
This is only going to get worse for NHL the longer Bettman rolls over and accepts second-class treatment from networks that are either too cowardly to let the league sink or swim on its own merits, or have direct conflicts of interest from the remainder of their sports packages and have decided the NHL isn't relevant enough to have any real days to itself, even for just one game.
I would've watched the Winter Classic if it was on New Year's Day. Heck, I would've watched it on New Year's Eve (and was aware it had been moved), but it was either that or the Penguins game later that night because I have to share the main TV with my mom, and was also busy cooking for my nephew (who slept over that night) when the Classic was actually on. Good job, Turner, your cowardice drove away someone who actually wanted to watch your mediocre product on the day you selected for it.
The fact that the WC was played at night made it watchable for me, day games outside are so terrible.
With the winter classic it is very weird. College football playoff is on ESPN so then just put it on TNT.
The NFL does go to Saturdays the Week after the Army-Navy game.
Quick question Shannon; can you tell us what team started the drop pass from the centre line to the defense? I see the teams using it in the World Junior tournament now. Happy New year.
You are not the only person to watch hockey. I watched the Wild take on the Press last night. I don't care if the NFL, NCAAF or NBA is playing ........I'm watching hockey. Why? Because it is a better, more exciting sport to watch and I have thought so since the first time I saw a hockey game back in the late 1960's with the San Diego Gulls taking on.........who can remember that far back? But I fell in love with it.
I completely agree that the scheduling for this outdoor game and pretty much everything else is stupid. The NHL season needs to start a month earlier and the playoffs end a month earlier.
Not only did people not know it was on but there were also way better games being played at the same time
I couldn't even watch the winter classic this year because it wasnt streamed on ESPN :(
I love feisty THG. NBA was the only league that played on Christmas Day aside from a few minor bowl games and this year the NFL decided to play on Christmas Day as well. So I don't know why the NHL doesn't schedule the Winter Classic on New Years Day
Was surprised when I saw I missed the winter classic.
How about schedule only one game on those "bad" days, so that there is at least some hockey to watch...
Denmark is the one who got promoted for next year. So they are back for a year at least.
My suspicion that the WC not being on January 1 was because their US broadcast partner preferred airing college football. And if thst were the case, it's not scheduling out of fear, but out of necessity given tv time on Jan 1 not being available. Now, that said, the WC should have been the only game on Dec 31 and not lost in a 13 game schedule.
L'Heureux seems to be a rather dirty player
to me, the winter classic has the same problem as the all star weekend.. they are trying to sell you too much of the "wow" factor.. "look how great this is, isnt this great, wow!", when its not. i rather watch normal hockey without the faff..
I think that's the main reason the NHL doesn't hype it that much. It's for the fans who go to that game mainly, and then the fans of the two teams playing. Everyone else is a distant third.
I knew that the Winter Classic was on, watched it for a while, but there were also IIHC games going that I I was keeping tabs on.
I don't watch NFL games so the Winter Classic could have been today.
“People didn’t know the game was on,” since when has the NHL been good at marketing the game?
When the game was wasn’t the problem
If I were a betting man, I'd bet anything the decision on scheduling the Winter Classic was primarily TNT, not the league. After last years ratings for the Seattle-Vegas blowout, I bet TNT made the call. Just as ESPN has forced so many scheduling decisions to keep their NHL coverage from getting in the way of basketball.
I haven't watched an NFL game in more than a decade. I haven't watched college football in quite a while.
The hockey fan vs NCAA fan venn diagram might not overlap as much as people think. For instance, my wife watched the WC a bit yesterday. No way she'd even be in the room if I had football on.
@@tjolsonmcse I think there's more of a baseball/hockey overlap than football/hockey. Maybe that's an old observation because I'm old myself, but I noticed over the years there was kind of a pairing hockey/baseball fan, football/basketball fans. Maybe not true anymore. Of course also hockey/baseball/football fans, which I was till I lost interest in football about 20 years ago.
It makes me so mad how they'll move the Winter Classic because they fear they'll lose viewers because of college football, but they'll happily schedule a Canadian team to play in the afternoon on a weekday where the US has a holiday but not in Canada. I've seen this so often having to miss the Habs playing because it's MLK or American thanksgiving so they're playing at 2PM while I'm at work
I would guess the schedule is mostly decided by the broadcast rights holders and the dollars they pay. In the USA, those broadcasters would likely rather not have NHL games competing with other major sports.
So Lane Hutson was named Rookie of the month for December..... Nice for the rookie
If the nhl wants a day for the winter classic if they’re scared of the cfb playoffs. Play on Christmas Eve
Counterpoint to the winter classic argument, NYE is a common night to have hockey games. My family goes to our local ECHL game on NYE every year. I agree the winter classic deserves more recognition than being 1/13 games on the same day though. Definitely need to be better with the scheduling as a whole though. The TONNES of games on one day, and then nothing the next makes no sense at all to me. No other sport does that. Even the NFL has actually done the opposite and moved away from 90% Sunday games to spread out specialty games throughout the week.
NBA schedules around NFL and NCAA tournament
Hot take: the Winter Classic scheduling doesn’t matter because it’s not novel anyway.
With more than one outdoor game each year, it’s not like fans are going to miss the experience of they don’t watch one.
The fact that it was a meh St. Louis team vs. an awful Blackhawks team, who are playing outside for the 80th time, means it wasn’t must-watch at all.
College bowl games draw because they ARE novel, can’t-miss TV for a lot of Americans. Why should I tune in for a regular season divisional game when I 1) have other opportunities to watch outdoor games, 2) have other opportunities to watch the Hawks and Blues play each other, and 3) have already seen this anyway?
The problem I'd have if Canada doesn't at least medal this year let alone win gold is that they have the talent to easily do it they just left half of it at home and would be absolutely embarrassing and shameful on the people who picked the team to have this kind of outcome in a tournament on home soil. Especially in this tournament where most teams brought their best players and still have a weaker team than most years like Finland, Sweden, and Czechia Canada should if they brought the best team easily made the finals
Shannon, you are 100% right about the scheduling. Keep preaching on this nonsense.
NHL is the red headed stepchild of sports.
If the NHL wants people to watch the outdoor game, maybe pick a better team than Chicago to host it. Hard to watch a game that they couldn’t even get up for.
Is there a panic index coming today?
The winter classic was yesterday?!
Is it “scheduling out of fear” or is it the major broadcast partners (ESPN, etc) saying “you can schedule an important NHL game on this day, but we aren’t going to show it because [whatever] gets better ratings”?
The NHL owns New Year’s Day! Defend your territory!
College football has always owned New Year's day except for on Sundays.
I agree about the winter classic… Moreover, why Blues vs Hawks??? Everyone knew that these teams won’t be relevant for PO spots… and I cannot see any big rivalry between them currently… There are much more attractive teams to have Winter classic… 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah I didn’t even know the game was on 😂
The nhl scheduling really is so frustrating. I am a hockey fan. I don’t want to watch basketball or football or whatever else is on that day. I want to watch hockey but the NHL does not respect that hockey fans could possibly want to watch hockey when given the choice.
I 100% agree with your thoughts on the scheduling of the Winter Classic. I have a hard time believing hockey fans didn’t know about it. You have to be one of the most casual fans to not know it. If you’re a bigger football fan, you’re going to watch football over hockey even if it’s an outdoor game. I also think that not only scheduling a lot of games around the winter classic but the winter classic needs to be played at night. And I also don’t see a problem with it being played on a weekend in January where there are no NFL playoff games or college football.
I can’t stand football..it’s so boring to me & for the life of me i do not understand it’s as popular as it is, it’s so bewildering to me. I felt this way since I’ve discovered the sport of hockey when I was 11 years old and I’m 46 now. When I was growing up, I used to get super angry about it😂
CAM FOWLER!!!
I didn’t watch the Winter Classic because Chicago needs to not get the Winter Classic for a while. There’s lots of markets NHL. Maybe let a market other than Chicago get to play a Winter Classic.
Regardless of what other sports they are up against, the winter classic needs to have a day of it's own. This is supposed to be a premier NHL event. Something special. I didn't watch because the NHL did no promotion that I saw and it was at dinner time during a work day for my wife and I. We were both home all day on Jan 1 though. Just Dumb.
Surprised there wasn't a player safety hearing on caps player that pinned Carlo on the ice and was punching him in the face... I guess that is just "roughing".
5 or less??? O u right im pissed.
I recall going to see the Blackhawks at Kings on the day of the San Diego/San Francisco Super Bowl in 1995. Two other games (Philadelphia at Montreal; Pittsburgh at Washington) were played according to Hockey Reference web site.
Both the Super Bowl and Kings game at the Great Western Forum were blowouts.
Schenn v Foligno looked more like a make out sesh. Smoochie Smoochie.