NHL on CBS

NHL on CBS
Genre	Sports
Created by	CBS Sports
Starring	Bud Palmer Fred Cusick Brian McFarlane Jim Gordon Stu Nahan Dan Kelly Bill Mazer Phil Esposito Harry Howell Dick Stockton Tim Ryan Lou Nanne
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	4 (1956-1960 version) 6 (1967-1972 version) 2 (1979-1980 version) 12 (total)
Production
Running time	180 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original airing	January 5, 1957 (1957-01-05)-1960 (1960) December 30, 1967 (1967-12-30)-May 11, 1972 (1972-05-11) February 10, 1979 (1979-02-10)-May 24, 1980 (1980-05-24)
Chronology
Related shows	CBS Sports Spectacular
External links
Website

NHL on CBS is a former television program that broadcast National Hockey League games on CBS Sports. CBS was the first American television network to broadcast NHL games.

History

1956–1960 version

CBS first broadcast National Hockey League games for four seasons from 1956–57^[1]–1959–60. CBS aired games on Saturday afternoons^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} with Bud Palmer^[8][9] and Fred Cusick handling the announcing duties, initially. Palmer served as the play-by-play man^[10] while Cusick did color commentary as well as interviews for the first three seasons. In 1959–60, Cusick moved over to play-by-play while Brian McFarlane came in to do the color commentary and interviews. The pregame and intermission interviews were done on the ice, with the interviewer on skates. No playoff games were televised during this period and all broadcasts took place in one of the four American arenas^[11] at the time.

As previously mentioned, CBS covered the 1956–57 season on Saturday afternoons, starting January 5.^[12] For the next three years, they continued airing games a Saturday afternoons starting on November 2, 1957, October 18, 1958 and January 9, 1960.^[13]

According to the 1991 book Net Worth: Exploding the Myths of Pro Hockey, during the 1956-57 season, CBS broadcast 10 games that were popular with viewers. The four American franchises^[14] at the time (the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks,^[15] Detroit Red Wings, and New York Rangers^[16][17]) each received $100,000. However, the players themselves, received absolutely zero money from the TV deal.^[18] One CBS employee said, "We got a call from a girl in Cincinnati who wanted to start a women's hockey league. We referred her to NHL president Clarence Campbell, who told her hockey was too rough for gals."

Furthermore, according to Sports Illustrated,^[19] the NHL dropped CBS because the NHL owners didn't want the fledgling Players' Association to gain a financial cut of the TV deal. This was despite the fact that CBS was at least at one point, getting better ratings than NBC's NBA package from around the same period, especially in cities that had NHL, minor-league, or major college hockey teams.

In 1963–64, CBS offered to broadcast a NHL Game of the Week on Saturdays during the National Football League season. By the winter, CBS would move the Game of the Week to Sundays in the same time slot. Ultimately, the NHL rejected the idea, saying it would cause too many schedule and travel problems. The league was especially worried about a game from Montreal or Toronto being played on a Saturday afternoon (and not on Saturday night to accommodate CBC Television), and teams having to play an early afternoon game on Sunday after playing a game the previous night.

Schedules

1958–59^[20][21]

Date	Teams
10/18/58	Detroit @ Chicago
10/25/58	Chicago @ New York
11/1/58	Detroit @ Boston
11/8/58	Chicago @ Detroit
11/15/58	Montreal @ Chicago
11/22/58	Detroit @ Boston
11/29/58	Boston @ New York
12/6/58	Detroit @ Chicago
1/3/59	Boston @ Detroit
1/10/59	Detroit @ New York
1/17/59	New York @ Chicago
1/24/59	Chicago @ Detroit
1/31/59	Detroit @ Boston
2/7/59	Chicago @ New York
2/14/59	Montreal @ Boston
2/21/59	Chicago @ Detroit
2/28/59	Boston @ Chicago
3/7/59	New York @ Chicago
3/14/59	Detroit @ Boston
3/21/59	New York @ Detroit

The Toronto Maple Leafs didn't appear on the schedule because they played at home every Saturday night during the season.

1967–1972 version

Coverage

For six seasons, from 1966–67^{[22][23][24][25]} through 1971–72,^[26][27] CBS aired a game each week^[28][29] between mid-January until early-mid May in each of those seasons, mainly on a Sunday afternoon,^[30] including playoffs.^[31] Each American based franchise was paid $100,000 a year for the first two years of the initial contract and $150,000 for the third.^[32] From 1968–69^{[33][34][35][36]} through 1971–72, the intermission studio was called "CBS Control", just like with their NFL coverage.

Due to prior programming commitments, CBS could not broadcast regular season games during the 1966-67 season, so that portion of the package was subleased to RKO General, which syndicated eight regular-season games to some cities, including the four U.S. cities that then had NHL clubs and the six U.S. cities that would gain new teams in the 1967 expansion.

Further information: NHL on RKO General

During the 1967 playoffs,^[37] CBS was scheduled to broadcast the April 8 game between the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens. However, an AFTRA strike forced cancellation of the telecast. The strike itself would ultimately end two days later.

CBS started their weekly 1967–68 coverage^[38] with the opening game (the Philadelphia Flyers vs. Los Angeles Kings) at the Forum in Inglewood, California on December 30.^[39] Then after two more Saturday afternoons, CBS switched to Sunday afternoons beginning on January 28 for the next 10 weeks.^[40] Due to an AFTRA strike (which resulted in the cancellation of a New York Rangers-Montreal broadcast), CBS started their playoff coverage with a CBC tape of the previous night's Boston-Montreal game.

On April 13, CBS started their three week long weekend afternoon Stanley Cup coverage. The last game of the series was St. Louis-Montreal on May 11. For the playoffs, Jim Gordon worked play-by-play and Stu Nahan worked color. During the regular season, Gordon and Nahan^[41] alternated roles each week. For instance, Gordon did the worked play-by-play on December 30 while Nahan worked play-by-play the next week.

In 1968–69,^[42] CBS broadcast 13 regular season afternoon games and five Stanley Cup playoff games.^[43][44] Dan Kelly did play-by-play while Bill Mazer did color and intermission interviews.^[45][46]

The same pattern continued through the 1971–72 season. CBS did manage to televise the 1971 Stanley Cup Finals clincher on a Tuesday night and the 1972 Stanley Cup Finals clincher on a Thursday night. In 1971, CBS was not scheduled to broadcast Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, but showed the prime time contest (the first ever occurrence of a NHL game being nationally televised in prime time in the United States) between the Montreal Canadiens and Chicago Black Hawks after fans reportedly swamped switchboards at network headquarters in New York asking that the seventh game be televised. Ironically, the game was not telecast by the Chicago CBS affiliate WBBM-TV, nor on CBS affiliates in most of Illinois, and parts of Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa, due to Blackhawks' owner Arthur M. Wirtz policy of not telecasting home games.

While Dan Kelly once again handled all of the play-by-play work, Jim Gordon replaced Bill Mazer^[47] in 1970–71. For the CBS' Stanley Cup Finals coverage during this period, a third voice was added to the booth (Phil Esposito in 1971 and Harry Howell in 1972).

One trivial note however, on January 23, 1972, Jim Gordon was not in Boston for the Buffalo-Boston game. Therefore, Dick Stockton filled-in and did the game with Dan Kelly. Stockton, although doing some work for The NFL on CBS, was also at the time sports anchor for WBZ-TV in Boston, which ironically was at the time an NBC affiliate. WBZ-TV would later switch from NBC to CBS, and has been a CBS owned-and-operated affiliate in Boston since 1995.

During the 1972 Stanley Cup Finals between the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers, CBS took a rather calculated risk in not televising Game 5 of the Final on Tuesday night May 9 (CBS aired regular programs, including the original Hawaii Five-O in that time period). This was despite the fact that Game 5 was a potential clincher with the Bruins up 3 games to 1 on the Rangers. CBS ultimately lucked out (since the Rangers won Game 5 3-2), and televised the clincher (Game 6) on Thursday night, May 11.

After CBS lost the American television rights to NBC following the 1971-72 season, they covered the World Hockey Association's inagural season.^[48]

Stanley Cup playoffs

Year	Round	Series	Games covered	Play-by-play	Color commentator(s)
1968	Quarterfinals	Boston-Montreal	Game 2 (joined-in-progress; CBC tape)	Danny Gallivan	Dick Irvin
		New York Rangers-Chicago	Game 4	Jim Gordon	Stu Nahan
	Semifinals	Minnesota-St. Louis	Game 2	Jim Gordon	Stu Nahan
		Chicago-Montreal	Game 5	Jim Gordon	Stu Nahan
1969	Quarterfinals	St. Louis-Philadelphia	Game 4	Dan Kelly	Bill Mazer
	Semifinals	Boston-Montreal	Games 2, 4	Dan Kelly	Bill Mazer
1970	Quarterfinals	St. Louis-Minnesota	Game 4	Dan Kelly	Bill Mazer
	Semifinals	Boston-Chicago	Games 1, 4	Dan Kelly	Bill Mazer
1971	Quarterfinals	Chicago-Philadelphia	Game 4	Dan Kelly	Jim Gordon
		Montreal-Boston	Game 7	Dan Kelly	Jim Gordon
	Semifinals	Chicago-New York Rangers	Games 4, 7	Dan Kelly	Jim Gordon
1972	Quarterfinals	Minnesota-St. Louis	Games 4, 7	Dan Kelly	Jim Gordon
	Semifinals	Boston-St. Louis	Game 3	Dan Kelly	Jim Gordon

In relation to the 1967 NHL expansion

CBS' second go around with the NHL came at just about the time when the NHL's Original Six franchises were to be joined by the league's first expansion class of 1967–68.^[49]

Although, the San Francisco Bay Area was not considered a particularly good hockey market, the terms of a new television agreement with a U.S. network (ultimately CBS) called for two of the expansion teams to be located in California. Hence, the California Seals and Los Angeles Kings joined the National Hockey League in an attempt to get a better TV deal, given that two large West Coast television markets would have NHL clubs. (The Seals were renamed the Oakland Seals during their first season and then were rechristened the California Golden Seals when purchased by Charlie O. Finley in 1970–71.)^[50]

CBS was hoping that they would grow with the NHL by persuading them to go coast-to-coast (Montreal to Los Angeles) in a similar fashion for which they had grown with the National Football League (beginning in 1956).

Memorable moments

Perhaps, the most memorable moment came on Mother's Day of 1969–70 (May 10), when Bobby Orr's^[51] winning goal in overtime of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals gave his Boston Bruins their first Stanley Cup Championship since 1941, as they swept the St. Louis Blues at the old Boston Garden. Immediately upon scoring, Orr caught his skate in the defenceman's stick and was sent flying onto the ice. The "flight" was captured by a news photographer and is one of the iconic images in the history of sports.

The most commonly seen video clip of Bobby Orr's "flight" is the American version broadcast on CBS as called by Dan Kelly. This archival clip can be considered a rarity, since about 98% of the time, any surviving kinescopes or videotapes of the actual telecasts of hockey games from this era usually emanate from CBC's coverage. According to Dick Irvin, Jr.'s book My 26 Stanley Cups (Irvin was in the CBC booth with Danny Gallivan during the 1970 Stanley Cup Finals), he was always curious why even the CBC typically uses the CBS replay of the Bobby Orr goal (with Dan Kelly's commentary) instead of Gallivan's call. The explanation that Irvin received was that the CBC's master tape of the game (along with others) was thrown away in order clear shelf space at the network.

The clip exists because WSBK-TV in Boston, an independent station, was the television flagship of the Boston Bruins. WSBK had a weekly program during the season showing highlights of the previous week's games. WSBK got permission from CBS to simulcast the game and to tape the network's telecast and use highlights from that it for the next week's show. WSBK decided to show the entire (however brief) overtime session in the final 1969-70 edition (airdate May 17, 1970) of Bruins Highlights, as well as in Boston Bruins: World Champions, an hour-long documentary featuring highlights of the team's 1969-70 season and Stanley Cup win. Coincidentally, WSBK is now owned by CBS, run as a sister station to WBZ-TV (formerly owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting as an NBC affiliate).

On May 24, 1980, in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the New York Islanders and Philadelphia Flyers, Bobby Nystrom scored the game winner at 7:11 of overtime on national television throughout the United States to secure the first Stanley Cup in Islanders' history. Nystrom was part of the first NHL team (1979-80 New York Islanders) to win a Stanley Cup with Europeans on its roster.^[52]

Ratings

The highest rated Stanley Cup Finals games in NHL on CBS history are the following^[53]:

Rank	Date	Teams	Game	Viewership
1.	May 18, 1971	Montreal-Chicago	Game 7	12.41 million
2.	May 11, 1972	Boston-New York Rangers	Game 6	10.93 million
3.	April 30, 1972	New York Rangers-Boston	Game 1	8.51 million
4.	May 7, 1972	Boston-New York Rangers	Game 4	8.26 million

As part of The CBS Sports Spectacular (1979-1980)

1979 Challenge Cup

1978–79's Challenge Cup replaced the All-Star Game. It was a best of three series between the NHL All-Stars against the Soviet Union national squad. In the United States, Game 2, which was on a Saturday afternoon, was shown on CBS^[54] as part of CBS Sports Spectacular.^[55] The network, the show, and their sponsors had a problem with the rink board advertising^[56] that the NHL sold at Madison Square Garden, and refused to allow them to be shown on TV. As a result, CBS viewers were unable to see the far boards above the yellow kickplate, and could only see players' skates when the play moved to that side of the ice. In addition, only the third period was shown (along with brief taped highlights of the first two periods that were shown before airing the third period live). Games 1 and 3 were shown on the NHL Network,^[57][58] where the advertising was no problem.

1980 Stanley Cup Finals

CBS would only air one other NHL game following Game 2 of the 1979 Challenge Cup. That would take place on Saturday, May 24, 1980, with Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Islanders.^[59][60] It was the first full American network telecast of an NHL game since Game 5 of the 1975 Stanley Cup Finals aired on NBC. As previously mentioned, when CBS broadcast Game 2 of the 1979 Challenge Cup, it was only seen on CBS for the third period.

Game 6 was won in overtime by the host Islanders, who captured their first of their four consecutive Stanley Cups. By this time, Dan Kelly^[61] was joined by former NHL on NBC commentator, Tim Ryan. Dan Kelly did play-by-play for the first and third periods as well as overtime. Meanwhile, Tim Ryan did play-by-play only for the second period. Minnesota North Stars GM Lou Nanne was the color commentator throughout the game.

Game 6 pulled a 4.4 rating on CBS.^[62] After the game ended, except for the New York and Philadelphia affiliates, CBS dropped the telecast and went to a previously-scheduled golf telecast. New York and Philadelphia viewers got a postgame show before they joined the very end of the golf broadcast. Given that the game went into overtime, CBS cut away from hockey during the intermission between the end of regulation and the start of overtime to present ten minutes of live golf coverage, with the golf announcers repeatedly mentioning that the network would return to hockey in time for the start of sudden-death.

As previously mentioned, Game 6 of the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals turned out to be the last NHL game (to this date) to be televised on CBS. It was also the last NHL game on American network television until NBC televised the 1990 All-Star Game.

Failed 1994-95 bid

After losing the National Football League and Major League Baseball in 1994, CBS was in the running to gain the National Hockey League rights beginning in the 1994–95 season, only to be outbid by Fox.^[63]

Incidentally, during the 1990s, CBS had the American broadcasting rights to the Winter Olympics (1992, 1994 and 1998). CBS used Mike Emrick^[64] (1992 and 1994) and Sean McDonough (1998) on play-by-play for the ice hockey coverage, John Davidson (all three Olympics) and Mike Eruzione (1992 and 1998) on color commentary, and Darren Pang as the ice-level reporter (1998).

In 2010, CBS Sports president Sean McManus said regarding the prospects of the NHL returning to CBS in the foreseeable future^[65] "It’s a great property, but with our commitment to golf and college basketball, there just isn’t room on our schedule." As a result, CBS did not place a bid for the broadcast rights when they were expired in 2011, being the only major network not to place a bid. The Comcast-owned networks (NBC and Versus) renewed their existing deals through 2021.

References

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2. ^ Wilkin, Bob (August 2, 1956). "Bruins Eye TV, Rookies, Ponder Starting Switch". The Christian Science Monitor: p. 10. 
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4. ^ Wilkin, Bob (February 14, 1957). "Bruins Tie for Second Place; Play Exhibition Game at Barrie Tonight". The Christian Science Monitor: p. 10. 
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39. ^ "New Year Party Offers Variety". Hartford Courant: p. 20. Deccember 30, 1967. 
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47. ^ Deeb, Gary (March 28, 1976). "Sport of 'Kowtowing to Television'". Chicago Tribune: p. B1. 
48. ^ Lucas, Jonathan (2007). First, Fourth and Last. Trafford Publishing. p. 60. http://books.google.com/books?id=3y7_6s4CnQYC&pg=PA60&dq=NHL+on+CBS&hl=en&ei=yDBHTaH-J4PksQPB4JzOAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFMQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=NHL%20on%20CBS&f=false. 
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52. ^ Podnieks, Andrew; Szemberg, Szymon (2008). IIHF Top 100 Hockey Stories of All Time. Bolton, Ontario, Canada: Fenn Publishing. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-55168-358-4. 
53. ^ Fang, Ken (16 June 2011). "Stanley Cup Final Game 7 Becomes The Most Watched NHL Game In 38 Years". Fangsbites.com. Wordpress. http://fangsbites.com/2011/06/stanley-cup-final-game-7-becomes-the-most-watched-nhl-game-in-38-years/. Retrieved 17 June 2011. 
54. ^ "Sports BRIEFING". Chicago Tribune: p. W_C3. February 10, 1979. 
55. ^ Swift, E.M. (February 19, 1979). "Run Over By The Big Red Machine". Sports Illustrated. http://cnnsi.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=The+Soviet+National+Team+flew+home+as+champions+of+the+-+02.19.79+-+SI+Vault&expire=&urlID=431399217&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsportsillustrated.cnn.com%2Fvault%2Farticle%2Fmagazine%2FMAG1094628%2F3%2Findex.htm&partnerID=289881. 
56. ^ "Sports BRIEFING". Chicago Tribune: p. E3. February 15, 1979. 
57. ^ Eskenazi, Gerald (February 8, 1979). "Soviet Six Now Taking N.H.L. Series Seriously; Million-Dollar Gate". New York Times: p. D18. 
58. ^ Verdi, Bob (February 8, 1979). "Soviet 'pupils,' suspicious NHL stars open 3-game war". Chicago Tribune: p. C3. 
59. ^ Rosa, Francis (May 18, 1980). "GORING FINDS HIS PARADISE". Boston Globe: p. 1. 
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External links

• NHL Hockey News - CBSSports.com
• NHL on CBS at the Internet Movie Database
• The NHL TV Set, Part 2: Two Network Split, Because the Baseball Network Worked So Well
• NHL on CBS - Google Search (timeline)
  • 1956-60
  • 1966-72
  • 1979-80
• The Suitor Tutor, Part 3: All The Rest

Preceded by None	NHL network broadcast partner in the United States 1956 - 1960	Succeeded by None
Preceded by NBC	NHL network broadcast partner in the United States 1966 - 1972	Succeeded by NBC
Preceded by NHL Network	NHL network broadcast partner in the United States (with Hughes) 1980	Succeeded by None