By now, I'm sure plenty of you have heard about the "Love Me Two Times" shootout that took place on Saturday in Dallas between the Stars and the Red Wings.
Like plenty of other NHL Center Ice subscribers, I'd decided to watch Stars-Red Wings instead of the local NBC affiliate feed of the Flyers and the Lightning:
With the Stars up 2-1 after two rounds, Turco had a chance to seal the victory by stopping Henrik Zetterberg. He did, too, forcing him to push the puck wide right.But Turco's stick slipped out of his hands while he tried to poke away the puck. Turco immediately turned to an official and shook his blocker to indicate he did nothing wrong. The official apparently agreed because the Stars began celebrating. Then replay officials took another look, ruled it a thrown stick and credited Zetterberg with the tying score.
"I didn't mean to throw it, but I'm sure it was the right call," Turco said.
Unfortunately, the news of exactly what happened might not have gotten to subscribers of the league's PPV package, NHL Center Ice. That's because the feed to the Dallas-Red Wings game went dark once it appeared the Stars had won the shootout that was set to continue after video review.
If I hadn't accidentally tripped over the local NBC affiliate again, I wouldn't have known what had happened until hours later. While it might not seem like a big deal, the problem is that subscribers pay a considerable sum of money for the PPV package. And when you're a paying customer, it's not out of line to expect somebody in the control room to pay attention to what was happening on the ice in Dallas.
There's a very simple way to fix this problem. As any NHL Center Ice subscriber knows, game feeds often end just before the next commercial break after the game goes final. Instead, it might be a better idea for the league to arrange that the feed continue automatically for at least five minutes after the game goes final.
It's a minor adjustment, and one that would have helped avoid the mistake on Saturday. And besides, it's the sort of service that the few dedicated customers that the NHL already has deserve to get.
UPDATE: Jay Kumar writes:
Saw your post about NHL Center Ice cutting away from the end of the Stars-Red Wings shootout. I
NBC almost did the same thing — they covered the celebration and went to commercial, probably never to come back…they had to cut the commercial break off to cover the review of the thrown stick call and catch the rest of the shootout (they also had to trim the horse racing coverage that followed the game so the local news feeds could come in on time).
Clearly NBC learned its lesson!