Jack Todd: The CBC failed a nation with its NHL playoff coverage
Our national network's decision not to broadcast Games 5 and 6 of the exciting Oilers-Stars series was a terrible look.
Author of the article:
Jack Todd • Special to Montreal Gazette
Published Jun 03, 2024 • Last updated 6 hours ago • 4 minute read
The CBC had the puck on its stick in the crease with a wide-open net. All it would have taken was a wee tap-in for a goal.
Instead, our beloved national network scored on its own net when it made two vital games involving a Canadian team in a Stanley Cup semifinal disappear from its platform.
Even for CEO Catherine Tait and her Merry Band of Bonus Bandits, it was breathtaking folly. The Edmonton Oilers, Canada’s most exciting team, were a couple of wins away from playing in the Stanley Cup final for a nation that hasn’t seen a Cup parade since the Canadiens won it all in 1993.
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So where was the CBC, for decades the home of Hockey Night in Canada?
Nowhere to be found, that’s where.
As part of the NHL deal with Rogers signed in 2013, the CBC no longer has control of the broadcasts, but it can still provide a platform for the national games — and you can’t get much more national than a Western final with a Canadian team, right?
Wrong. I blamed Sportsnet, the big bad entity that has been hammering us with Garry Galley and coast-to-coast “Where’s My Game?” confusion for more than a decade now.
Wrong again.
The decision to opt out of playoff games even if they featured a Canadian team had been made months before, when the CBC decided to air instead something called the Canadian Screen Awards followed by a Just for Laughs special on the evening of what turned out to be Game 5, and a reality show called Canada’s Ultimate Challenge during Sunday evening’s Game 6.
Worse, the CBC did show the final game of the Panthers-Rangers series featuring two American teams.
That decision was made at a time when four Canadian teams (Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto) were all bona fide Cup contenders, meaning there was a good chance there would be a conflict. Yes, the games were available on Sportsnet, but they were not to be found on “free” cable or even CBC Gem.
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Begging the question: What would the CBC have done in the unlikely event that the all-powerful Maple Leafs made it to the Eastern final? (We know the answer to that one.)
The CBC is still a unifying force and its sports coverage is generally excellent. Without the CBC, we wouldn’t know that sports outside broadcasting’s Core Six (hockey, baseball, football, basketball, golf and tennis) exist.
This was a chance for the CBC to return to the national conversation, to be part of one of those rare moments when the country is united, as it was during the final minutes of Sunday’s game as the Oilers and goaltender Stuart “Who Knew?” Skinner clung by their fingernails to a 2-1 lead.
Sorry folks, but “Canada’s Ultimate Challenge” is the battle for Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Sometimes, I think that Tait is a Pierre Poilievre plant, placed there to render the network so unpopular it will be easy for Poilievre to tip the Mother Ship into Lake Michigan and cancel the CBC for good.
Tough, not impossible: For the fifth straight year, the Eastern Conference team in the Stanley Cup final will come from the state of Florida. The Tampa Bay Lightning made it for three straight years, winning two, and Florida is making its second straight appearance.
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Apart from their dominant Russian goaltenders, the Bolts and Panthers have little in common. Tampa has the high-flying offence, Florida the shutdown defence. Playing them is like crawling through an acre of razor wire in your jockey shorts.
But Vancouver and Dallas are both tough teams and the Oilers took them out. The heavily favoured Stars were beaten, in the end, because Edmonton had a lockdown penalty kill and Skinner became Patrick Roy over the last five periods of brutal playoff hockey.
With Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard emerging as a superstar defenceman, the Oilers have the best shot at winning it all among the Canadian teams that have made it this far since the 1993 Habs.
Unlike McDavid, I don’t believe in gambling on sports. But if I did, my money would be on the Oilers to win it in six games. In McDavid, Edmonton has the best player in the game. Draisaitl is Mark Messier to McDavid’s Wayne Gretzky and in Kris Knoblauch, the Oilers have a young coach who has taken them from a 2-9-1 start to the summit of the game.
Skinner will need to keep doing his imitation of St. Patrick but it’s there for the taking. And I’ll be watching — on Sportsnet.
Heroes: Stuart Skinner, Evan Bouchard, Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Kris Knoblauch, Paul Maurice, Owen Beck, Taylor Heise, Kendall Coyne Schofield, Iga Swiatek, Naomi Osaka, Oblique Seville, Robert DeNiro, Pierre Houde &&&& last but not least, Bill Walton, cousin of The Gazette’s Pat Hickey — great player, greater human.
Zeros: Catherine Tait, the CBC, the Blue Jays, Mark Shapiro, Ross Atkins, Bo Bichette, George Springer, Chad Kelly, Andrey Rublev, Alexander Zverev, Jacob Trouba, Chennedy Carter, Bud Selig Jr., Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.
Now and forever.
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