At 12:46 PM -0400 7/30/96, Deron Treadwell wrote:
> Maine will also be banned from any
> television coverage for the 1996-7 season.
 
This could have some interesting implications.
 
The first question I have is, what exactly does this entail?  I presume
that Maine will not be able to appear on any NESN Hockey East telecasts,
nor on Maine channels 2 and 6 as has happened in the past.  I also presume
that no one Maine plays will be able to air the game on their own local
broadcasts, including possible Prime broadcasts.
 
This has implications for some teams that will be playing Maine.  It
probably means that, for example, that neither WABU-68 (BU) nor WNDS-50
(Lowell) will be able to air games in which those teams play Maine.  In a
way, this hurts those schools, if you figure that they probably get some of
their biggest audiences when they play Maine.  I'm sure Maine benefits some
when they appear on other teams' broadcasts, but this could hurt those
teams more than Maine in those specific cases.  On the other hand, they'll
have enough other games on tv, so it isn't that much of an issue.
 
But perhaps a bigger implication has to do with the Hockey East tournament.
Will NESN be prevented from airing HE tournament games in which Maine
competes?  This isn't a big deal in the quarterfinals, since NESN will have
other games it can show, but what if Maine goes to the HE championship
game?  Will the HE championship game not be on tv?
 
And to take it a step further, if HE is concerned about the possibility of
its championship not being on tv with all the publicity that normally goes
with it, could this lead to HE prohibiting Maine from taking part in the
1996-97 HE tournament?
 
I only raise these as issues and am not advocating anything either way.  I
have no reason at this time to believe that HE is even considering
prohibiting Maine from competing in the 1997 HE tournament.
 
There's also the issue of Maine gaining an automatic bid by winning the
1997 HE tournament, which presumably would result in the league forfeiting
the bid (one of two, with the new change giving each league two automatic
bids).  But, I would guess that this was answered last season when HE
didn't prohibit Maine from competing even after Maine had announced it
would not be taking part in the NCAA tournament.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
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