FEEDING HOCKEY TO THE BELL GLOBEMEDIA BEAST

Short post before the Jays and Mariners get started:

The Toronto Star takes a look at the supposed death spiral of CBC Sports and where the division might be three years from now. About the best that CBC sports head Nancy Lee can offer in the here and now: "There also is no other over-the-air broadcaster prepared to do what we're doing.
"On the hockey front, in terms of playoffs, is another over-the-air network going to free up midweek to do playoff games so everybody can see them?"

She has a point, but as the Star concludes, "The answer is no. But like most things in the broadcasting business, that can change in a hurry." Besides, TSN already showed the first three rounds of the playoffs this season.

There was a time when yours truly might have bought Lee's line of logic. Try five years ago, when digital was in its infancy and home satellites -- "country cable," as my uncle Rick has dubbed it -- were just starting to sprout up. Now, yours truly has to wonder just who is encompassed by Lee's "everybody."

The demographics show Canada's population is increasingly urban. Out of the city dwellers who can't afford or choose to live cable-free and ruralites who, Luddite-like, still have the rabbit ears instead of a dish, how many are sports watchers?

Yours truly has, at various stops along the way, lived cable-free at various times and in each case, the need to get a sports fix drove me to put my name on the dotted line. The same can probably be said for my parents, who live in an area where you can't get cable (they still have dial-up internet, imagine that!), but pay gladly for a dish so they can watch hockey on a weeknight.

Besides, from what I'm told, in most areas a good antenna will get fairly good reception from CTV, which would likely become the home of the Stanley Cup final when Bell GlobeMedia inevitably gets the Canadian NHL rights.

So why are everyone's tax dollars going to the CBC so it can bid on sports properties that the very few people who gain from its egalitarian, albeit screw-you-taxpayer mandate (hat tip to a great Kids In The Hall sketch) will benefit? You tell me.

Yes, there are people in isolated pockets of rural Canada who will lose out when the CBC loses hockey, and possibly the CFL too, but to be honest, it's a very small percentage of the total population that pretty much always suckles at the hind tit where anything involving the government is concerned. They're probably used to it by now.

Hate to sound elitist, or to come across as having a "screw you, I got mine" attitude, but it's all about the bottom line. Instead of having every Canadian's tax dollars going toward ponying up for CBC to broadcast the Olympics, the CFL and NHL, let the Bell GlobeMedia beast have it .

Those who want access to it will pay for it, or find another way to follow the games, if they're interested in it. It's called voting with your wallet.

The risk in writing this is that it may come off as a slam on the CBC. It isn't. The CBC still has a role to play in making sure Canadian perspectives get on television. That's something we as Canadians shouldn't begrudge our tax dollars going toward. Back in the day, the CBC was the only broadcaster who would put The Kids In The Hall on the air, since it wasn't beholden to the bottom line or advertisers who got antsy if the programming wasn't bland and turgid.

Of course, I say this knowing full well it will fall on the deaf ears of a nation of coffee-and-donut scarfing whiners.

So here's a modest suggestion for a three-way trade involving CBC, Bell Globemedia and Canwest Global: CBC parts with hockey, but in returns it gets Corner Gas and the Canadian rights to 24, which stars Kiefer Sutherland, the grandson of The Greatest Canadian, Tommy Douglas. It's only fair.

Related:
I'll Tell Ya What: Br-rrrr-i-an Wil-li-ams, The Triumph of Bland and the CBC's Sinking Ship (June 6, 2006)

OTHER BUSINESS

• How would you feel if the Blue Jays bullpen just threw eight innings on a day when Roy Halladay started ? That's what happened yesterday in an otherwise rousing 7-6, 14-inning win over Seattle. Now it rests on A.J. Burnett going seven innings strong -- at least -- before this week's series against the Texas and the four-gamer against the Evil Empire.
• Subject to the earlier post about the Mideast, President Bush and other G8 leaders are urging Israel to show restraint. Not good enough? What are they actually going to do about this unchecked aggression?
• Forgot to post this last night while riffing about fellow Napaneean Avril Lavigne getting married: a couple years ago, my friend Jay Pinkerton wrote a fairly hilarious article titled Avril Lavigne By The Numbers. Highlights:
  
  

  "Amount Lavigne won at Kingston Exhibition and Home Show's Country Singing Showdown in 1999, in Canada: $1000
  
  City in which author of this piece lived in 1999: Kingston, Ontario, Canada
  
  Place author of this piece worked as Event Coordinator in 1999: Kingston Exhibition and Home Show
  
  Duties of author during this summer job: accounting, putting hog and cattle finalists into database, some lifting
  
  Unofficial duties: playing Prince of Persia on old 486 computer
  
  Level I obtained on Prince of Persia by end of summer: 8
  
  Likelihood that I met Lavigne that summer: 20%
  
  Likelihood that I gave a crap: 3%"

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.