Here's a question: Why are "three stars of the game" picked after every game in the NHL?
As long as I can remember, I thought the game had three periods, which led to three stars. Easy enough, right? Lord knows I never thought to question it either.
Wrong. Here's an interesting aside from the Hockey Night In Canada entry over at the Museum of Broadcast Communications:
Imperial Oil pulled out of partner sponsorship in 1976 as oil shortages made advertising redundant. (But it left behind the post-game ritual of picking the "three stars" -- a practice begun to promote Imperial's "Three Star" brand of gas.)
I'm sure plenty of my Canadian readers knew that, but it's probably news to the rest of us South of the border.
I had wondered about that myself, but had never thought to really look it up. Now I know! Thanks.
I don’t know how it is in other two-newspaper towns, but here in Tampa Bay, for years the “Three Stars of the Game” was (and I think, still is) sponsored by the Tampa Tribune. As a result, while the Stars would get reported by the Tribune, they wouldn’t get mentioned at all in the St. Petersburg Times.