Pool Report: Week Six Ends

If you believe Bruce Dowbiggin of the Globe and Mail, the above photo is NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman preparing to negotiate the next “Hockey Night In Canada” contract with the CBC.

Dowbiggin’s article is a good read, one you might want to access before the Globe’s new pay wall goes up, certain to be followed shortly by either it or the newspaper disappearing for good…

As we are repeatedly told, it’s the profits from “HNIC” that allow CBC the luxury of producing Canadian drama. You know, like that Irish-Serbo-Croatian miniseries on the Titanic they’ve got coming this season, I guess to mark the 101st anniversary of its sinking.

Am I the only guy wondering if the continuous CBC obsession with opulent luxury liners and monarchies is an executive level longing for the days when the needs of the little people didn’t really matter and those at the top were never questioned…?

I bet a close check will reveal those 650 employees set adrift because of budget cuts were mostly traveling steerage with hardly anybody in First Class even getting their Guccis damp.

Anyway, because CBC doesn’t reveal how much money it actually earns from Hockey broadcasts, we’ll never know if us showbiz folk in the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool will be affected by what appears to be an abysmal playoff season for the Mother Corp.

But the news can’t be good.

Ratings are half those of last season due to the lack of Canadian teams. And because US based teams prefer afternoon tilts on the weekend, tomorrow’s pivotal Rangers/Devils Game Three will broadcast while it’s still morning in half of the country.

Nothing wrong with breakfast at Madison Square Gardens from a hockey standpoint. But it can’t make CBC bean counters any happier than the guys running sports bars.

I’m sorry if I offend anybody’s personal ideology, but it won’t be this guy who kills the CBC…

It’ll be this one…

That said, nobody’s killing the excitement in the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool, as Murray Loeffler surges ahead on the back of a hot goalie, with John McFetridge, Will Dixon and a couple of others still within striking distance.

We’ll know more of who’s really still in the running on Monday. But for now, the standings are: