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Be smarter at your bar listen weekly as Rotowire’s Darryl Houston Smith presents news and analysis from the world of Pro Hockey. Tonight: The Top 100 NHL players list continues.

League Partners Building Upon Three Years Of Ratings And Viewership Growth

NEW YORK (August 25, 2010) – The National Hockey League (NHL) announced today the television schedules for national partners NBC Sports, VERSUS, CBC, TSN, TSN2, RDS, RIS and NHL Network Canada for the 2010-11 NHL regular-season.

In the U.S., NBC Sports and VERSUS return for a sixth consecutive season as national television partners. In Canada, CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada begins its 58th regular-season of NHL® broadcasts while TSN, whose relationship with the NHL dates back to 1987, continues as the national English-language cable partner. RDS, the French-language telecast partner of the NHL, has been televising NHL games since its inception in 1989 and enters its eighth consecutive season presenting every Montreal Canadiens game.

For the 2009-10 NHL regular-season, television ratings and viewership continued a three-year upward trend for all partners. Additionally, the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs reached milestones:

· Most-watched NHL game in the U.S. in 36 years on NBC (Stanley Cup Final Game 6)

· The highest audience for an all-U.S. Final in Canadian television history on CBC

· The most-watched first two rounds on U.S. cable in history on VERSUS

· The most-watched NHL game in TSN history

· The largest audience in the history of RDS

The 2010-11 NHL regular-season opens on Oct. 7 – just 43 days from today – with a five game slate, including a national tripleheader in the U.S. on VERSUS and a national doubleheader on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada and a national game on TSN. That day, the Minnesota Wild and Carolina Hurricanes will play the first of two regular-season games against each other at Hartwall Areena in Helsinki, Finland, as part of 2010 Compuware NHL Premiere™ and NHL Face-Off™. That game will be seen nationally in the U.S. on VERSUS and on TSN in Canada at Noon ET.

Also on opening night, the Pittsburgh Penguins will debut their new home, the CONSOL Energy Center, against their intrastate rival and defending Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia Flyers at 7 p.m. ET as the middle game of VERSUS’ tripleheader. In the nightcap, at 10 p.m. ET, the Chicago Blackhawks begin their defense of the Stanley Cup® by travelling to Colorado to face the Avalanche.

NHL Face-Off, a hockey and entertainment festival in Toronto providing fans the opportunity to salute the start of the season, precedes the first game of the Hockey Night in Canada doubleheader – the Montreal Canadiens at Toronto Maple Leafs at 7 p.m. ET. This game also will be available on RDS. The “Battle of Alberta” takes center stage for the second game on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, at 10 p.m. ET, with the Calgary Flames visiting the Edmonton Oilers.

This will be the fourth straight year the NHL will begin the regular-season with games contested overseas. The Blue Jackets and Sharks will square off for two games at the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, on Friday, Oct. 8 and Saturday, Oct. 9. Meanwhile, the Bruins and Coyotes will play each other at O2 Arena in Prague, Czech Republic, on Saturday, Oct. 9 and Sunday, Oct. 10. In total, TSN and VERSUS will each telecast four NHL games and NHL Network Canada will broadcast one NHL game from Europe to kick off the regular season.
The annual Hall of Fame Game will be played on Saturday, Nov. 6, when the Maple Leafs host the Buffalo Sabres. CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada will once again provide full coverage of all of the festivities that evening. The Hall of Fame inductions are Monday, Nov. 8.

On Jan. 1, NBC Sports in the U.S. and CBC and RDS in Canada again will televise the 2011 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic® — the event Forbes magazine calls “the best new sporting event” of the last decade. Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins will battle Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals at Heinz Field, home of the Steelers, at 1 p.m. ET. The NHL’s fiercest rivalry will be re-ignited in this special wintery setting.

The NHL’s mid-season spectacular returns when the Carolina Hurricanes and the city of Raleigh host the 2011 National Hockey League All-Star Celebration on Saturday, January 29 and Sunday, January 30. The Honda NHL SuperSkills® and the 58th NHL All-Star Game will take place in North Carolina for the first time. The action from both nights will be covered live by VERSUS, CBC and RDS.

The celebration of hockey continues when Whitehorse, Yukon, hosts Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada on Saturday, Feb. 12. The network plans over 13 hours of coverage for the 11th edition of the event, including a NHL tripleheader featuring all six Canadian-based teams: Ottawa at Edmonton at 2 p.m. ET, Toronto at Montreal at 7 p.m. ET and Calgary at Vancouver at 10 p.m. ET.

Returning to the NHL calendar this season is the 2011 NHL Heritage Classic™, the regular-season outdoor game to be played Sunday, Feb. 20 by the Montreal Canadiens and Calgary Flames at Calgary’s McMahon Stadium. CBC and RDS will carry the game in Canada and VERSUS will telecast the outdoor match in the U.S.. The event marks the first regular-season NHL game contested outdoors in Canada since the Edmonton Oilers hosted the Canadiens at Commonwealth Stadium on Nov. 22, 2003.

As part of Hockey Weekend Across America in 2011, NBC Sports and the NHL will salute the roots of the sport with Hockey Day in America on Sunday, Feb. 20. Launched by USA Hockey in 2008, Hockey Weekend Across America is a nationwide initiative to celebrate the game and those involved at all levels and to expose hockey to new audiences. NBC Sports will celebrate the day-long event with regional NHL coverage. More details about Hockey Day in America will be released at a later date.

After NBC Sports launches its NHL coverage Jan. 1 with the 2011 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic, the NBC NHL “Game of the Week” drops the puck on Jan. 23 at 12:30 p.m. ET. The NHL and NBC will again collaborate on flexible scheduling for NBC’s regular-season dates, providing fans the most exciting match-up available. At least 13 days prior to the scheduled date, a game will be selected to broadcast on NBC. All NBC “Game of the Week” games will be broadcast on Sundays and presented in High Definition. NBC will again broadcast games in the postseason, including Games 1, 2 and 5 through 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in primetime.

VERSUS will televise 78 games during the 2010-11 regular season, 13 more than last season, including 53 exclusive regular season games and 25 bonus games. In addition to live coverage of the All-Star weekend and the 2011 NHL Heritage Classic, VERSUS will cap off the final week of regular season action with a game each night (Monday-Friday) leading into the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs. VERSUS once again will air wall-to-wall action throughout each round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, culminating with Games 3 and 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.

CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada schedule includes a total of 29 all-Canadian match-ups and the game’s biggest stars, with a total of 87 games during the 2010-11 season, including preseason. Viewers will again be able to watch the CBC game of their choice with live and on-demand streaming of all games, special features and much more, available at CBCSports.ca.

This year’s combined 124-game NHL on TSN national broadcast package is part of TSN and TSN2’s multi-year broadcast and digital rights agreement with the NHL. A total of 76 regular season games will air on TSN, with 70 games featuring at least one Canadian team. TSN retains exclusivity of Wednesday Night Hockey, during which there are no other national or local NHL telecasts. TSN2’s regular season schedule features 48 live NHL games.

Once again this season, RDS will telecast all 82 Montreal Canadiens games, including the 2011 NHL Heritage Classic. The network also will televise a package of games featuring other NHL teams, including the 2011 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic on New Year’s Day. RDS will also be presenting full coverage of the NHL All-Star weekend. On RIS Info Sports, viewers will be offered an additional 42 regular-season NHL games.

NHL NetworkTM this season will televise up to 75 live games for its American audience and 31 live NHL games for its Canadian viewers. In addition, NHL Network’s signature show, NHL On The Fly™, returns across North America nightly providing highlights and analysis of every NHL game.

For Canadian viewers, NHL Network drops the puck on the live 2010-11 NHL regular-season schedule Oct. 10 when the Boston Bruins and Phoenix Coyotes go head-to-head in Prague, CZE as part of the 2010 Compuware NHL Premiere in a special 10 a.m. ET matinee. The action continues the next day when captain the Penguins visit the New Jersey Devils at 1 p.m. ET. The next night, the Atlanta Thrashers travel to the West Coast to face the Los Angeles Kings for a 10:30 p.m. ET start.

More information on the dates and times of the NHL Network U.S. 2010-11 schedule will be released in the near future.

Audio Interview:  NHL Agent Steve Bartlett talks about Free Agency and the Agents role in Working with Young Players. This interview took place September 22, 2010. Bartlett has been an NHL agent since 1984.

Be smarter at your bar listen weekly as Rotowire’s Darryl Houston Smith presents news and analysis from the world of Pro Hockey. Tonight: NHL Agent Steve Bartlett talks about Free Agency and the Agents role in Working with Young Players.

Rotowire Houston-Smith – Free Fantasy Baseball – ESPN.

Getting down to the autumnal home stretch in the Fantasy Sports Writers Association’s Fantasy Baseball Industry Insiders League.  My club is currently sitting in 2nd place in the Scott White League.  It’s going to be a classic close finish.

My goal remains the same.  Win the league or at least finish in the Top 4 (the top 4 of each FSWA league make the big board at the end of the season).   Realistically, it looks like I will not be able to catch ESPN’s Pierre Becquey, who built a

real statistical juggernaut, so I’m trying to nail down one of the other coveted Top 4 spots.

The end of the season is no time to play it safe so I took a risk recently and traded for Alex Rodriguez for my end of the season run.  A-Rod came at a steep price.  I knew about the calf injury of course (so I anticipated on a little DL time) but still went hard after him regardless.  The team that had him was low in the standings and badly needed help at Catcher and First-base so I packaged All-Star Adrian Gonzalez and catcher Matt Wieters for Rodriguez.

I have led the league all year in OBP and Runs but started to struggle in RBI and SLG once two-fourths of my core; Chase Utley and Kevin Youkillis went down. (Lucky for me I still had Josh Hamilton and Adrian Gonzalez healthy).   I made a few wire pickups Casey McGehee, Jim Thome, Pat Burrell, David Murphy and Chris Denorfia to address these areas of weakness but I was still lacking another major offensive catalyst. So that’s when I targeted Alex Rodriguez.

Which leads me to this bit of fantasy advice; you can’t win at fantasy sports if your not willing to make significant adjustments and take risks.  No one drafts the perfect team and a timely trade along with a few waiver wire pickups can make all the difference in the end.

Pro Hockey Weekly S3 E3 – TIER 1 NHL Forwards
TIER I NHL FORWARDS POWER RATINGS
1 Alexander Ovechkin WAS 125
2 Sidney Crosby PIT 115
3 Evgeni Malkin PIT 105
4 Nicklas Backstrom WAS 105
5 Henrik Sedin VAN 100
6 Daniel Sedin VAN 100
7 Steven Stamkos TB 90
8 Zach Parise NJ 90
9 Patrick Kane CHI 90
10 Ilya Kovalchuk UFA 90
11 Alexander Semin WAS 90
12 Joe Thornton SJ 85
13 Eric Staal CAR 85
14 Ryan Getzlaf ANA 85
15 Martin St. Louis TB 85
16 Pavel Datsyuk DET 85
17 Anze Kopitar LA 80
18 Dany Heatley SJ 80
19 Jason Spezza OTT 80
20 Corey Perry ANA 80
21 Marian Gaborik NYR 80
22 Patrick Marleau SJ 80
23 Marian Hossa CHI 75
24 Jonathan Toews CHI 75
25 Mike Richards PHI 75
26 Bobby Ryan ANA 75
27 Henrik Zetterberg DET 75
28 John Tavares NYI 75
29 Rick Nash CBJ 75
30 Vinny Lecavalier TB 75
31 Travis Zajac NJ 75
32 Jeff Carter PHI 75
33 Jarome Iginla CGY 75
34 Brad Richards DAL 75
35 Paul Stastny COL 75
36 Ryan Kesler VAN 75
37 Ales Hemsky EDM 75
38 Phil Kessel TOR 70
39 Marc Savard BOS 70
40 Alex Burrow VAN 70
41 Joe Pavelski SJ 70
42 Alex Kovalev OTT 70
43 Mikko Koivu MIN 70
44 Mike Cammalleri MTL 70
45 Derek Roy BUF 70
46 Daniel Alfredsson OTT 70

August 14, 2010

PIESTANY, Slovakia – Stephen Michalek (Glastonbury, Conn.) stopped 23 of 24 shots faced, but the U.S. Under-18 Select Team fell just short against Canada, 1-0, here today in the championship game of the 2010 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament. The second-place Team USA posted its best finish at the tournament since 2006, compiling a 3-0-1-1 (W-OTW-OTL-L) overall record.

“Our guys gave it everything they had today,” said Tim Army, head coach of the U.S. Under-18 Select Team. “We couldn’t have asked for anything more from these players, who really came together in a short period of time and played well against tough international competition all week.”

Canada’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored the lone goal of the game less than two minutes into the opening period. Michalek and the U.S. defense settled in from that point on, however, keeping Team USA within striking distance throughout.

But the U.S. failed to find the back of the net, and finished second at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament for the seventh time (1993, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2006, 2010) since the event’s inception in 1991.

PIESTANY, Slovakia – Lukas Sutter (Whitefish, Mont.) notched two goals and Connor Murphy (Dublin, Ohio) scored the game-winning goal in overtime, as the U.S. Under-18 Select Team defeated Sweden, 5-4, here today in the semifinal round of the 2010 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament. With the victory, Team USA will face Canada in the championship game tomorrow (Aug. 14) at 9:00 a.m. EDT in Piestany, Slovakia.

“I thought we had a strong start and played very well,” said Tim Army, head coach of the U.S. Under-18 Select Team. “We really settled into our game and did the things that we needed to reach the championship game.”

Sweden took an early 2-0 lead, but Sutter got Team USA on the board just under two minutes into the second period to cut the deficit in half. Skating into the attacking zone on a two-on-one rush, Cason Hohmann (Plymouth, Mich.) slid a pass through the Swedish defenseman to Sutter, who fired a one-timer past Sweden goaltender Marcus Due-Boje.

After Sweden regained a two-goal advantage at the 4:25 mark of the second, the U.S. answered yet again with a goal just one minute later. Tanner Sorenson (Anchorage, Alaska) knocked in a rebound in front of the net, after shots by Justin Selman (Upper Saddle River, N.J.) and Theo Di Pauli (Woodridge, Ill.) were turned aside.

Team USA then rallied to score two second-period power-play goals. Sutter netted his second goal of the game midway through the frame and Seth Ambroz (New Prague, Minn.) scored at the 15:55 mark to give the U.S. a 4-3 advantage heading into the third. Ambroz connected with John Gaudreau’s (Carney’s Point, N.J.) pass in the slot for a one-timer.

Sweden scored the lone third-period goal to send the game into overtime. But just 41 seconds into the extra frame, Team USA netted the game-winner. After carrying the puck the length of the ice, Murphy sent a pass to Ambroz and skated to the net. Ambroz then chipped the puck back to Murphy, who wrapped around the goal and poked the puck behind Due-Boje for the score.

BRECLAV, Czech Republic – Canada has steamrolled its way through the Memorial of Ivan Hlinka under-18 hockey tournament, but its biggest rival awaits in the final.

Lucas Lessio scored twice in a 6-2 semifinal victory over the Czech Republic on Friday, giving Canada a chance to win gold at the event for the sixth time in seven years.

It’ll face the U.S. in Saturday’s final.

The Canadians boarded a bus after their semifinal win and made the two-hour trip back to Piestany, Slovakia, where the championship game will be held. There wasn’t much time to prepare for the Americans.

“Rest is most important right now,” said coach George Burnett. “We’ll keep the U.S. information until (Saturday) morning after a good meal and a good walk.”

He expects the U.S. to be a “hungry and gritty” team.

The Canadians haven’t been so bad themselves, outscoring their opponents 25-9 while winning all four games at the tournament. Burnett is quick to point out that it won’t mean much without one more victory.

Alan Quine, Matt Puempel, Brett Ritchie and Garrett Meurs also scored for Canada in the semifinal.

“We had a great start to the game,” said Burnett. “We were up 3-0 in the first and really dominated the play. There was a lot of energy in the building and I think our guys fed off of that.

“I think that was our best game.”

Vaclav Tomek and Tomas Hertl replied for the Czech Republic.

Several Canadian players battled the flu early in the tournament but most have since recovered. One exception is captain Ryan Murray, who earned plenty of praise from his coach.

“He’s a long way from 100 per cent,” said Burnett. “He gave us a yeoman effort here tonight until we sat him down for the third (period). He’s our captain, he wants to be in there and I think that’s why he’s our leader.”