Blogs > Red Wings Corner

Up-to-the minute updates and insights from the Red Wings locker room at home and on the road. By Chuck Pleiness of The Macomb Daily.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Saturday/Sunday?

If the Stanley Cup final has Games 1 and 2 in Detroit this Saturday and Sunday (that's the rumor if Detroit wins tonight), that will be the first time that there have been Cup final games on back-to-back days since 1955.

Why now? I don't get it. The original plan for an early start was Thursday if both conference finals were sweeps. If it was Thursday, they couldn't have gone Thurs/Sat/Sun. So why the big rush to play Sunday? I don't know.

And 1955? Believe it or not, the back-to-back dates were between Game 4 and 5. So Game 4 was in Montreal on April 9. Game 5 in Detroit on April 10.

11 Comments:

Anonymous TJ said...

I can't believe they are actually going to do this. The only thing I can think of is they want two NBC games...Could something like this happen in any other major sport?

May 27, 2009 at 10:44 PM 
Anonymous perfection said...

just posted this at kukla'skorner but it seems relevant here:

does anyone else think that the league is trying to handicap this series by rushing the start to saturday after originally announcing it would be june 5th? not only does that insure dats and lids can't get TOO healthy before saturday, but then they have to play back to back, saturday and sunday.

i'm sure the league will use tv audience as an excuse, but it reeks to me of the league trying to further balance the scales...

May 27, 2009 at 10:49 PM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

its got 'bettman hates Detroit' written all over it. Wings will prevail

May 28, 2009 at 12:51 AM 
Blogger Unknown said...

espn implied that it is because conan is premiering on the tonight show next week. but why not just give the game to versus on monday?

May 28, 2009 at 11:27 AM 
Anonymous Garth said...

NO, I don't think it's the league trying to handicap the series AT ALL.

Come on, that's ridiculous...

From what I understand, it's because NBC doesn't want to show games next week, on weekdays, because they're debuting Conan O'Brien on the Tonight Show next week and they don't want to potentially push back shows for the first week in case the games go long.

That's why the options were this Saturday/Sunday or NEXT weekend. Notice that none of the options ever had any games playing the week of the 1st-5th of June: the week of Conan's debut.

Honestly, anyone claiming conspiracy just looks like a fool and loses any credibility, in my mind.

May 28, 2009 at 12:03 PM 
Blogger Kurt said...

It definitely seems strange given that it has not happened in over 50 years. Bettman's work?

May 28, 2009 at 12:16 PM 
Anonymous Steve said...

As bad as Bettman wants his little girl to win the cup I'm surprised they didn't start today.

May 28, 2009 at 1:03 PM 
Anonymous TStar said...

NBC wanted this since their new Tonight Show debuts the first week of June and they didn't want a hockey game to interfere with that (they expect record ratings for the Tonight Show). I promise you this isn't what Bettman wants but it is what he is forced to accept in order to get his sport nationally televised. There is no conspiracy, unless it's being engineered by NBC purposely predicting the NHL playoff results and injuries months in advance and intentionally scheduling their new Tonight Show broadcast in direct conflict to ensure that the Red Wings would get screwed. Yep, they knew all this months ago when they started the wheels in motion.

May 28, 2009 at 2:46 PM 
Blogger Chuck Pleiness said...

Garth and TStar ... here's what I don't get about the Tonight Show situation.
They're playing Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Thursday night next week. Isn't that the Tonight Show debut week?
So if that's the case, why not have Game 1 on Sunday, Games 2 and 3 on Tuesday and Thursday. Nothing changes for weekday NBC coverage and the teams don't have to play back-to-back games.

May 28, 2009 at 4:37 PM 
Anonymous perfection said...

EXACTLY!!!

that's what i was thinking. the logic just doesn't support having back to back games.

and, believe me, i feel like a huge homer/fool when i buy into conspiracies, but every game the wings have lost this post season have coincidentally been horribly officiated. fine. now this schedule thing?

i don't think the conspiracy is so much that the league doesn't want the wings to win, they just want every series of the playoffs to go to as close to 7 as possible and i do think that has effected certain decisions they've made.

guess i'm a fool.

May 28, 2009 at 6:49 PM 
Anonymous Garth said...

Games 3 and 4 are on Versus though (at least, that's what I read). I'm assuming it just comes down to NBC having the rights to 1,2 and 5+ and not wanting to have the possibility of Conan being pushed back because of OT.

Of course, why they couldn't have Game 1 on Sunday on NBC, games 2 and 3 on Tuesday and THursday on Versus and Game 4 on Saturday on NBC, I don't know (though I would guess that Versus wouldn't want to give up Game 4).

May 28, 2009 at 6:55 PM 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home