I don't think it's really fair to take ESPN to task for hacking up
    the championship replay.  I suggested earlier this week that this
    would happen, although I didn't know to what extent.  The replay
    was scheduled a long time ago to fit in a two-hour time slot, and
    there is no way ESPN could have known the game would last as long as it
    did.  If the game ended in regulation, the replay (minus intermissions,
    which were probably also cut out) would surely have fit in two hours.
    It wasn't as if ESPN could just shift around its schedule at the
    last minute to make the replay longer.  Maybe 10 years ago they would
    have done that, but they're too big now.
 
    In fact, back in 1985 the replay of the RPI-UMD triple overtime game
    wouldn't fit in its time slot, so they had to cut parts of the overtimes
    as well.  That's the copy I have on tape (the first year I started
    recording the games).  So this is nothing new.
 
    I don't know how much ESPN listens to viewers (they apparently did not get
    our message to Tom Mees not to call BU "Boston" or "Boston U."), but the
    best hope is probably to get them to replay the whole game again sometime
    in the middle of the night so everyone can set their VCRs.  The whole game
    minus intermissions can fit in three hours easily.  It lasted four hours
    of real time and there were four intermissions.
 
    If they won't air an entire replay, it's especially unfair to Minnesota
    fans since I remember someone saying the live broadcast was blacked out in
    their area.  They, at least, deserve to get to see a whole replay.
 
 
    - mike