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~moeman

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~~~

"HNIC homers show their true colours

You'd think Leafs were the only team

CHRIS ZELKOVICH

It was more than a little ironic that on the same day the CBC trumpeted its Canada-wide celebration of hockey it provided some hard evidence for those who insist the regular Saturday affair should be called Hockey Night In Toronto.

With the Toronto Maple Leafs hosting the Ottawa Senators, who at last check were still located in Canada, the CBC was presented with a perfect opportunity to highlight one of the best teams in hockey. That's Ottawa, if you were wondering.

Instead, what viewers got was the usual Saturday night broadcast that told us far more about the boys in blue than it did about the team that won 8-0.

The game started off fine with both teams being given equal notice. Bob Cole even took time to praise the Senators ("These guys are dynamite,") though it sounded more as if he was surprised by their power.

The fact that he has seen much more of the Leafs may explain that.

If there was any doubt where the CBC stood, Don Cherry put it to rest in the first intermission.

After apologizing for calling Toronto "we," the man who has worn Leaf ties on air noted that his favourite team was no longer intimidating the guys from Ottawa. "It's sad to see," he moaned.

I imagine that played well in the Ottawa Valley.

He then came to the crucial matter that was no doubt on the minds of Canadians from coast to coast: Should Wade Belak be playing?

Instead of a focus on why the Senators were dominating the league and the Leafs, what we got was a discussion on why the Leafs were playing so poorly. In the HNIC world, that's all that really matters.

Cherry did interrupt his Leaf infomercial for a celebration of Ottawa forward Jason Spezza's amazing goal, but that appeared to be more fodder for one of his eyebrow-twitching rants against Europeans than anything else.

Cole didn't help matters in following Daniel Alfredsson's goal with, "that makes it 7-0 Toronto." It was a slip of the tongue, no doubt enabled by calling so many Leaf games.

After the game, you might think the main topic would be Dany Heatley's four goals. But Cherry had one overriding thought: that no Leaf started a fight after Tie Domi was knocked around. "That is disgusting," he spat.

The CBC's love of the Leafs is nothing new. In many ways, it's understandable.

There's no way the early game of the Hockey Night In Canada doubleheader would be averaging more than 1.6 million viewers this season if it weren't for the Leafs. That's why the Senators, Flames, Oilers and Canadiens get little national exposure in comparison.

That might be acceptable with a private network. But the CBC is supposed to be all things to all Canadians, not just those waving blue-and-white flags."

~~~

Been pointing this out for years. Too bad the reporter didn't mention we non-leaf-loving Canadians pay for this service with our tax money. Otherwise, kudos to a leafarazzi for writing this article.

:can:

[Edited on 2005/10/31 by ~moeman]

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:clap:

I got tired of watching that game on Saturday. You would've thought the Senators were just another American team in town. 60 minutes of how poorly the Leafs defense was playing and they rode Eddie's jock the whole game. He could've stopped some of those, the defense didn't leave him out to dry for all 5 of them. Talk about a team overrating a player.

TSN is the same way. They didn't even play yesterday and yet we still got 10 minutes of Leaf coverage last night. But the Stamps game got a couple of plays, the score and that was it for highlights there. There is more to this damn country then those wannabe Americans. Now if only the media could figure that out.

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Wow! and all I can say is Wow! That article comes from Toronto too.

Attago CHRIS ZELKOVICH!

:hlogo::ghg::hlogo:

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Originally posted by jetsniper

TSN is the same way. They didn't even play yesterday and yet we still got 10 minutes of Leaf coverage last night.

You'd think it was Game 7 of the Cup final on TSN today. Long post-game recap on SC about how the Leafs are back and how Saturday meant nothing.

After they showed the habs highlights, rushed threw them and the jerk who talked over the plays was so disinterested and sounded annoyed. Just another sheep in the Idiot Nation upset cuz the Habs are amongest the leagues best.

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well let's hope the leaf sink lower and lower as the year goes on and then the hnic bias will be more and more obvious (to everyone but brainwashed leaf fans) there are still more non-torontonians in canada than there are torontonians, right?

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Great post, moeman - a very thorough disecting of our 'national' network's hockey coverage. I'd like to say they should give up and leave it to the others, but we see problems with TSN, too. I guess it would be slightly less annoying that our tax dollars aren't supporting it, but only slightly.

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Even more fun when one does the math of combining the 'other' 5 Canadian teans v. the leaf. The leaf garners maybe 23% of the national audience yet gets 100% of the early game. Worse, add the major city populations and try to justify giving the leaf 100% coverage. Its not explainable. cbc/hnic are run amok.

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If you total up the metropolitan population of just the 6 Canadian hockey markets, Assuming everyone in that market in a fan of that team, Toronto barley has 35%. So even if they were the only cities in Canada, that is still about 65% who aren't Leaf fans. Now factor in the rest of BC, Alberta, Sask, Manitoba... A good majoirty are not Leaf fans... The rest of Ontario, out of the Greater Toronto area, alot of people hate the Leafs. Rest of Quebec, DEFINITELY not Leaf fans... The East Coast, traditionally Montreal Canadien territory.

So a solid majority of the country hate the Leafs and are not Leaf fans. Leafarazzi propoganda tries to fool people in Toronto that the Leaf is the most popular team in Canada...

[Edited on 2005/11/2 by Leafs Suck]

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the problem is that even though a solid majority are not leafs fans, none of the other teams have more fans. If you are trying to make money, you will get the best ratings for a leafs game rather than any other team.

Now I think this is somewhat of a short-run return maximization view of the issue. Over time (as we can see) always catering to the largest minority will alienate the minorities-majority. Even though CBC might get less viewership for an ottawa-edmonton game, it improves their perceived national scope, encouraging non-leaf fans to watch leaf games on HNIC.

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