Perfect Storm of Bluster and Blunder

On Sunday, I got a phone call about 5 minutes before Sunday's Caps/Flyers game asking me if I was ready for the game, from my mother-in-law. "Are you wearing red, painting your face and all that?", she asked. I chuckled. She's been following the Caps through my wife, myself, and even through this blog for the last couple of weeks giving me words of encouragement, asking about the team, etc. She's been very encouraging, not by supporting the Caps, per se, but instead by supporting the supporters of the Caps. Who else but a mother could be a supporter of supporters?

She finished by saying that she would be watching the game at her house. Wow. The most amazing part of all this was that she would be watching this game voluntarily. If she was visiting at my house, well, there's no question what she would be doing. She'd be watching the Caps. Or at least she'd be yelling encouraging things like "Kill the quarterback!" while watching me, watch the Caps. Instead she put aside her Sunday afternoon to watch the Caps herself. I may have a true convert on my hands. Then, of course, the Caps laid an egg and even worse, they seemed to be belittled by the broadcast team. As a long-time, my skin is admittedly thin and cannot be relied upon to form an unbiased judgement about a game, but many things about this broadcast in particular bothered me.

When I talked with my mother-in-law earlier today, she offered, "I think they were emotionally spent after the Friday victory. They'll be fine." Then I asked her what she thought of the broadcast. Without prompting, she asked, "What? You mean why were they so against Washington?"

Of the NBC broadcast on Sunday, the nicest thing I can say is that it did not paint the Washington Capitals product or organization in nicest of terms. To put a finer point on that statement, to an outsider like say, my mother-in-law, "It seemed like, for whatever reason, they didn't care for the Capitals." Funny thing is she didn't even hear Milbury's "Crapitals" statement. When I told her about the Milbury comment, she asked in disbelief, "That's inexcusable. How can NBC let that happen?"

Most of the time I can defend the sport to the uninitiated, but I could not defend NBC. Mick Kern defends Milbury by saying essentially, "Hey Don Cherry talks out of his ass all the time. Don't get your panties in a wad." That defense is not applicable because Cherry is a bigoted, walking lawsuit waiting to happen. His blood and guts, Swedish meatball, xenophobic rhetoric would never be tolerated in the States, so there's no reason to invent one with a Milbury. While in the employment of NBC, the statements of their broadcasters, unless clarified with an editorial caveat, represent those of NBC as a whole. Capitals owner, Ted Leonsis, wrote in his blog earlier today that Milbury called him to apologize. He accepted the apology and asked the fanbase to move on, but he should demand more of NBC as an organization.

The Caps were outplayed in most aspects of the game, so criticism was deserved. However, the NBC general tone was condescending and one-sided. If you look at the makeup of the broadcast team for this game, you can begin to understand their collective and individual bias. Milbury (Boston, NYI), McGuire (Pittsburgh), and Emrick (Devils) are more familiar with the Atlantic division and have treated their Southeast rivals as second-class organizations that should relocate to a more deserving hockey market.

Compare the Sunday NBC game to the Friday coverage from Versus. The Versus studio crew of Patrick, Engblom, Jones, and (recently) Manny Legace is not afraid to voice their opinion while remaining impartial to the play of the teams. They discussing in terms of do's and don'ts. They make their picks playfully as would a bunch of buddies playing in a fantasy league. They are respectful of each other, the game, and the teams they cover.

The Versus play-by-play was done by John Forslund, a Southeastern broadcaster from Carolina. Being from the Southeast, Forslund could match the correct Capitals to their numbers, knew player's names, pronounced them correctly, made great observations, and managed to make no disparaging remarks.

While I don't enjoy that casual fans cannot via "ESPN-ubiquity" accidentally stumble into a hockey game, I do truly enjoy the Versus product. Unfortunately, it took this load of NBCrap that passes itself as the echelon of our country's hockey coverage for me to realize how much more enjoyable a game on Versus truly is. If only I could get Versus in HD... my cable company gets my next call.

So, what we can learn from a game like this is that "national" broadcast teams, no matter how hard they may try, are never devoid of biases. Very few of the "talent" on Versus or NBC get their entire paycheck from the network and in some way are affiliated with local coverage somewhere. Maybe in the future, national broadcast teams should be comprised from different regions much like playoff referees are assembled in college football. Maybe if NBC wants to stock their coverage team with opinionated characters, they should keep a Bill Patrick handy to settle the fireworks. Maybe, now that the writer's strike is over NBC could pay a writer or two that can at least give some direction to their studio talent rather than letting Pierre McGuire and Mike Milbury "wing it" between periods risking lawsuit or the loss of a sponsor. Or, maybe NBC can put some quality control measures in place... like my mother-in-law. "You can't go broadcasting crap like that, you'll catch your death."