Seriously, I might have to move to Canada next week. Their mistreatment of the hockey tournament has been an abomination. First, word came out that the biggest hockey game of the tournament, US v. Canada, was being kept off the main network for ICE DANCING! That's pretty bad. But now they're even mistreating the coverage of hockey on the cable networks.
The Canada vs. Norway game was supposed to start at 4:30 on CNBC. Before the game, CNBC was covering curling. Women's curling. Which is fine, but when 4:30 rolled around, I figured they'd jump over to the Canadian hockey game (the reason every single one of CNBC's viewers that day were probably tuned into that channel). But no. The curling match was not over yet. So they stayed. On women's curling. Until the bitter end...which was a good 20 minutes later.
So, I figured maybe they had moved the start of the Canada game to MSNBC. Nope, not at first. We had to watch the last 5 minutes of the US women beating Russia 13-0. Seriously, the US wasn't even playing anymore. They had stopped shooting the puck. Surely they could cut away for an exciting team of NHL all stars? Nope. Til the bitter end. Then they flipped over to the Canada game (we had already missed 5 minutes of game time), for a good 3 minutes. But then it was 5 pm, and the game was moved back to CNBC (mid period, mid skating) so the Peacock's cable news outlet could fulfill its nightly obligations of progressive indignation and Sarah Palin outrage.
Wonderful.
So for another 3 minutes of game time, we were forced to watch A RECAP OF THE WOMEN'S CURLING MATCH and three fucking commercial breaks. By the time they finally got back around to showing the Canadian mens game, there was 2 minutes left in the first. We had missed almost the entire first period.
This is just inexcusable. The network's rationalization for the decision to keep the US/Canada game on cable, both demographically and strategically, is at least somewhat defendable. The flagship NBC broadcast station has different considerations than its cable partners, and ice dancing trumps hockey on national television because hockey isn't a draw in broadcast prime time. In the cable landscape, however, hockey is a sufficient draw; and a game featuring Crosby, the San Jose Sharks' superstars and the rest of those NHL celebrities should trump women's curling and a blowout in women's hockey -- no questions asked, every single time.
NBC's coverage of these Olympics, most importantly the hockey mistreatment, but also the lack of showing actual events in prime time in favor of a 15 minute piece of Polar Bears and 15 personal profiles of athletes all saying the same thing: "I'm working really really hard, this is my dream...etc.", has been just abysmal. I love to watch the olympics. And I've been looking forward to watching the hockey tournament for months. And NBC is doing their best to infuriate me and shove their wishy washy coverage of complete and utter bullshit down my throat.
NBC is a worthless network. They mishandled Conan, they're mishandling the Olympics...there's a reason they are the least watched major network in the country. What a joke.
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