I’m in Chicago on business and have to travel frequently for work.  Upon arriving I was shocked to see the hotel actually carries the Versus network.  Since there’s no real time to watch anything beyond the Minnesota Twins at home, with family obligations etc, the only chance I really have to watch the NHL is when I’m traveling.  Unfortunately its rare to find a hotel that carries Versus. Which brings us to our biggest problem— the fact that Comcast owns Versus.  I can’t see the network ever reaching the saturation it needs when it has to rely on competitive cable and satellite companies for channel space.

It’s too bad because I really like the coverage they provide.  The announcers are first class and the studio show is entertaining.  In a sports landscape where people have written off hockey Versus is trying to resurrect the sport. How much have people written off hockey?  I was getting my hair cut at 11:30 this morning at SportsClips.  If anyone hasn’t been to a SportsClips you can watch flat screen TV’s playing sports while you get your hair cut.  They had the NHL network playing with the entertaining NHL Live from New York show with EJ Hradek.  Two of the other patrons had such loathing for the sport that they insisted the gals turn the TV to “baseball”.  Where they were going to find a baseball game at 11:30 is beyond me.  So we ended up watching professional bowling on ESPN.  That’s where hockey rates with the average American.  During the Stanley Cup finals people would rather tune into bowling than the mere thought of watching the NHL network.

Me?  I’ll be happily tuning in to parts of the Flyers/Penguins tonight.  In Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin the Penguins have two potential all-timers– it’s too bad the American public either can’t see them or doesn’t care.