ESPN's World Cup Of Hockey Broadcast Schedule Is The Most Disrespectful Shit I've Ever Seen
We’re just about a month away from the start of the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. We’ve been previewing the tournament for a few months now and yesterday, ESPN released their broadcast schedule for all of the games. Yes, in case you forgot, ESPN was awarded the broadcast rights to the tournament and it will be the first time the network gives a shit about hockey since god knows when. But after taking one quick glance at the schedule for next month, it’s clear that a conspiracy was in place for ESPN to bid for the broadcast rights only to bury hockey further under their inferior channels.
Now just like Cardale Jones, I ain’t go to college to play SCHOOL. Classes are pointless and I’m not a nerd. But let’s break down some of these numbers anyway just to show how egregious this is coming from ESPN. For starters, there are a total of 16 games (17 if necessary) this tournament. So out of those 17 total games, only 7 will be aired on ESPN. 8-9 games will be broadcast on ESPN2 and one will even get thrown on fucking ESPN News. Are you kidding me? This isn’t the super regionals of the Women’s College World Series, ESPN. This is the PREMIER talent of the National Hockey League. And you’re going to throw them on ESPN News? Pardon my french here but fuck you.
Also, out of the 7 games that WILL be on ESPN, only two of them will be at primetime. The others? Well they’ll be at 3 since ESPN was so gracious enough to let the games take the slot of SportsNation for 2 weeks. So unless you’re a blogger or you’re unemployed (what’s the difference really, am I right?), it looks like the only games you’ll be able to catch are on the deuce.
Lastly, we make our way to the finals of this tournament. A best of 3 series. In which the only two games that could decide the tournament will be on ESPN2 because game 2 on September 29th had to get bounced off of ESPN for a UConn vs Houston Thursday night game. Just BLATANT disrespect coming from all angles on this one. So like I said, I’m almost certain that ESPN is doing this purposefully. They know they don’t have the rights to hockey during the regular season and they don’t want the World Cup to generate any more interest in the sport. So they get the rights to this tournament, bury the shit out of it and now NBCSports doesn’t have any momentum to build on. Those mother fuckers. And maybe I’d actually fight for the NHL on this one but they turned me away at the door.
Guess you’re on your own with this one. Unless you want to hit me up with those credentials and then it’s all water under the bridge.
Silver Lining here…
At least nobody watches ESPN anymore any ways. Suckers. Just stream the tournament on YouTube and/or Twitter.