Okay, I've calmed down a little.  I was going to start this
post with "I take back every nice thing I've ever said about ESPN,"
but I won't.
 
        The important thing to keep in mind that while College Hockey
is orders of magnitude more important to us that tennis and golf,
everyone thinks their sport is more important than all others.  The
only fair way for a sports network to conduct themselves is to treat
all sports equally.  ESPN is supposed to have a policy that live
sporting events are followed to their conclusion.  For the first five
periods of the Maine-Michigan game, we saw the application of that
policy from both sides, and I cannot fault ESPN for anything they did
before the start of the third overtime.  Yes, it sucked for people
without eSPn2 to have to miss the first period (but at least some of
us did get to see it, which is more than ESPN had to do; I don't
believe the golf was shown on the dEuCe while the hockey game ran
late), but would it have been more fair to cut off the tennis before
it was finished?  Is our sport more important than theirs?  By the
same token, showing the golf only during the intermissions of the
hockey game and covering the overtimes live was the fairest thing they
could do.  (Although it would have eliminated a lot of confusion and
nervousness to run "flood-warning" trailers across the bottom of the
screen every few seconds telling viewers "Due to the tennis over-run,
the Maine-Michigan NCAA Hockey semifinal is being shown on espn2; as
soon as the tennis match ends, ESPN will join the broadcast in
progress", "Due to the hockey over-run, the Senior PGA tour cannot be
shown at this time; as soon as the game ends, ESPN will join the
broadcast in progress" and "The Maine-Michigan hockey game is in an
intermission; as soon as play resumes, we will rejoin the live
broadcast" at the appropriate times.)
 
        What ESPN did that was wrong, even inexcusable, was not to cut
away from the golf for the third overtime.  I absolutely disagree with
Ryan Robbins on this point.  ESPN's obligation is to apply its
policies evenhandedly, and by instituting a double standard and not
showing the end of the Maine-Michigan game live, they wronged this
section of their viewership.  Further, they insulted us by trying to
pass off a tape-delayed broadcast as live, and were downright stupid
in not showing the tape from the start of the third overtime.  (I
mean, even if we had been fooled--as I was before I read the
posts--into thinking we were watching a live telecast, we would have
had a right to be angry that they cut away from the golf too late to
see the first 25 seconds of sixth-period action.)
 
        Keeping in mind that we should give ESPN positive feedback for
carrying the NC$$s at all, the letter I intend to write will go along
these lines:
        1. Thanks for carrying college hockey on both networks.
        2. It would have been nice to be updated on the final score of
the Maine-Denver regional game earlier than we were (esPN2 told us
that Maine had won at least an hour before they gave the final score).
        3. I thought I understood your policy about staying with live
broadcasts, and so I understand your preempting the first period of
the Maine-Michigan game, and likewise the flip-side of preempting the
golf for first two overtimes.  But why then did you not show the third
overtime live, and what possible excuse do you have for passing off a
tape-delayed broadcast of the final few seconds as live coverage?
        4. You should arrange to be e-mail accesible via the internet
at large, not just Prodigy.  Surely the proprietary income you receive
from the policy of limiting yourselves to Prodigy can't weigh against
the advantages of wider publicity on the net as a whole.
 
I believe this diplomatic tone will be more effective than simply
cursing them out.
 
        That said, I don't think they should be let off the hook.
Most viewers who watched the game probably don't realize that they
were duped.  This mailing list is the only reason I know it, since I
was distracted during the final intermission, and had no more than a
vague impression that it was taking longer than it should.  I believe
ESPN deserves a certain amount of public humilation for this, so I
propose that someone who had a first-hand experience of learning the
outcome of the game before ESPN showed it write a letter to Sports
Illustrated suggesting they be nominated for a Heidi Award.  If this
gets printed, it will also have the advantage of providing more
visibility for College Hockey (as long as you avoid sounding overly
whiny, which would give people a bad impression of college hockey
fans).
 
        As if we needed anything else to get the emotions boiling on
top of 100 minutes of great college hockey (plus about 40 minutes of
the BU-Minnesota game before it stopped being a contest).
 
                                        John Whelan
                                        Cornell '91
                                        <[log in to unmask]>
 
        .sig not fit for public consumption!