Mike and others have made complaints about the Prime Network "National Game"
schedule as regards to conference breakdown (I'll admit, there are probably
too many CCHA games on there, but there may be another reason behind this).
Another way to analyze this would be to look at the sites that were picked
in terms of geography:
 
Hockey East home teams: New Hampshire(2), Boston College(1)
ECAC home teams: Vermont(1), Colgate(1)
CCHA home teams: Michigan(3), Bowling Green(2), Western Michigan(1), Michigan
                 State(1), neutral site(1)
WCHA home teams: Denver(3)
 
With the exception of Colgate, all of these sites are near major cities, which
obviously means the Prime people don't like to drive that far.  Also, all are
in arenas (there may be some exceptions here and there) that get large atten-
dance figures and are known for loud atmospheres.  (Now, that doesn't mean
that there aren't some places which didn't get picked by Prime that are louder
and get better attendance than the places listed here.  The number of home
games that MSU gets on Prime has dropped off, mainly because Munn has become
like a crypt in the past few years, with about as much life as a dried-up
toenail tossed negligently into a corner and forgotten for a few months. [Not
that I would EVER do that, of course. :-)])  (Come to think of it, Hamilton
isn't that far from Syracuse.)
 
It does seem that Prime has been favoring certain conferences over others, and,
more significantly, certain teams within a conference over others.  Now, alot
of that will depend on the facility in which you play, which means there won't
be too many Prime telecasts coming from Big Rapids anytime soon (or Columbus,
until they get the new arena).  But, one has to wonder why Denver received
3 home games, which are all of the WCHA clashes televised, when teams like
Minnesota (with a new arena) and Wisconsin (with a very noisy building) were
passed over (especially when it's really tough to get into Denver in the
winter, tougher than Madison or Minneapolis).
 
(For me, their schedule doesn't matter that much, anyway, since I'll be at
Munn most of the time, seeing if the toenail comes to life.)
 
What's the ultimate answer?  Probably calling your local Prime affiliate and
complaining.  For me, that would be asking, "You pre-empted college hockey
so we could see the Pistons lose, AGAIN?"
 
G. M. Finniss
Michigan State University
 
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