So... My local ESPN radio station switched from "ESPN GameNight" to... non-local NHL?

[Y2K Falcon]

Not enough room for me to finish this in the title, but...

I listen to ESPN radio often to kill time. I've listened to Bobby V., Todd Wright (all night), etc., if I'm taking a long drive and I need to keep awake/alert. This station even airs PTI daily.

So, I popped on the radio to take a shower, and in the middle of a discussion on the Stevie Franchise "incident", they cut away from ESPN GameNight for Westwood One coverage of the LA Kings vs. Edmonton Oilers. Now, I don't know how often we get this kind of coverage, but do they really think people care about out of market NHL games enough that they would prefer that over ESPN Radio?

I can marginally see people tune in for the Dallas Stars, but...

Perhaps it's a tradeoff to Westwood One to get the more valuable things, like Sunday night NFL, the NCAA tourney, college bowl games, etc. It seems like the only NHL game they have this week per their homepage ( http://www.kwnx.com/ ), and both teams are currently out of the playoffs (but the winner would move into at least a tie for 8th).

Their programming page says they sometimes interrupt GameNight for "one of the many properties of 1260 ESPN Radio. The Spurs, Rangers, Texans, Express and Ice Bats (Note by Y2K: our local minor league hockey team) are just a few teams featured on 1260 ESPN Radio." Our other station has Stars network rights.

http://cv.iradioshop.com/cgi-bin/ws2/radio-page.w?sid=1048&pagetype=programs

QUESTION:
Does anyone listen to out of market NHL games? And if so, do you all live in Minnesota or something? :hscratch:

[Dr_Evil]

If there is a big game going on, that's not on TV, I'll listen to it. I like the fact that the NHL has free internet broadcasts of their games. I'm a fan of my team as well as the sport itself. I enjoy hearing the other announcers from around the league and seeing how they compare to the hometown crew. So yes, I listen to out of market games, and no I'm not from Minnesota.

[Y2K Falcon]

Originally posted by Dr_Evil
So yes, I listen to out of market games, and no I'm not from Minnesota.
But... You live in an igloo. -rolleyes- That's close enough. ;)

This is Tex-ass, for crissakes!

[Dr_Evil]

:lol:

It's not an igloo, it's the igloo (a.k.a. The Civic Arena a.k.a Mellon Arena)

Hockey is my favorite sport, so I'm probably biased. In defense of what you're saying, 95% of the time I listen to out of market games, it is usually the Pens, since I'm no longer in the Pittsburgh area. The other 5% translates to no more then 3-4 games a year. So even as a big hockey fan, it's not something that I do very often.

[Corleone]

OILERS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!

We are now in the playoffs.

I never listen to out of market games but I do watch most of them. Lots of Calgary games, Vancouver, HNIC, and tons of Montreal games.