Brian Morris writes: > Is the NC$$ brain dead (kind of a rhetorical question.) Why are they trying to > emulate the brilliant strategy of the NHL, which took its TV from a primary > national cable outlet (ESPN) to a secondary/regional network (Sportschannel)? > The NHL succeeded in destroying a good piece of its national audience--and they > wondered why no one in the Sun Belt cared about their product? ;-)The problem > is not the broadcaster, it's their schedule. Mike M's suggestion of a Friday > night/Sunday afternoon tournament avoids going head to head with the men's > basketball Final Four. I would doubt that PRIME has significant national > cable penetration. In the SF Bay area, there is only one very small cable system on the peninsula that carries Prime feeds on a channel called Pacific Network (PN). The local Sportschannel outlet is heavily into the pro teams: SJ Sharks, GS Warriors, SF Giants and Oak A's, so it is unlikely that they would pick up a feed of college hockey since there are no local Div I hockey programs. ESPN is on all of the local cable systems and is not considered a premium service, so it will not cost more when the cable systems restructure their channels in the future. I think the best cable outlet for college hockey is ESPN. They already carry the Final Two game (is that OK to say?, or has BBall copyrighted all the Final N combinations ;-), and they have wide national exposure. The problem is that some of the leagues have cut their own deals for TV coverage with other networks: HE and NESN, CCHA and Prime. Are the WCHA and ECAC games on a regional network? The obvious next step for college hockey is to get complete coverage of the league tournaments and the regional NCAA tournament games. -John Hughes Amdahl/Advanced Systems Fremont CA [log in to unmask]