Well, I just found this story and laughed when I read it….

Basically Damian Cox believes the Flyers (or Toronto as this was published a few days ago) would have a bye to the Stanley Cup because the Lightning can’t compete with the Flyers or Leafs history.

History doesn’t have to lace them up every night…

You get a shot at one (or two) of the 200 tickets sold at 8 dollars each if you get to Times Palace early….

I mean REAL early.

The St. Petersburg Times has a great look at the wait for tickets, starting some 33 hours before gametime.

I’ve heard some criticism from opposing teams fans about “having” to offer 8 dollar tickets (a scant few at the very top of the arena) There’s nothing we “Have” to do by offering these tickets. They offer these tickets for those who can’t afford to buy full priced tickets. Especially during the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Some say this is a sign that Southern Hockey is weak.. But let me ask you this, if any team north of Tampa offered a scant few 8 dollar tickets to games - would people harp? Or would they more than likely herald the team for offering tickets at a low price for disadvantaged and priced-out fans?

Pro Sports aren’t supposed to be only affordable to the rich… And Hockey especially needs to make itself more affordable to students, families and minorities…

A scant few cheap seats that generates a load of PR and team exposure do a damn nice job… Too bad the rest of the league doesn’t realize this. (not saying other teams don’t offer cheap seats — but to keep offering them during playoff time is unheard of).

I had a number of beefs with todays TV broadcast from ABC… Of course I’ve already mentioned TV flubs… but there’s a bigger flub that I really am pissed off about.

What happened to the Tampa Bay versus Philadelphia rivalry story?

There was brief mention of the Lightning and Flyers facing off once before, in 1996, but there was no mention of the bad blood between those two cities. No mention of how 1980 and 1996 only helped fan the flames of a closet rivalry between the two cities that grew into something with the Bucs / Eagles battles of the last few years. Where was this coverage?

I’ll tell you were it was - straight up Disney’s ass.

ABC / ESPN are smarting mightily not having “marquee” teams (ie teams they covered profusely during the season) in the playoffs. So instead of building up the games, they are building up one team and hoping to high hell that team advances — Philadelphia. I’m not trying to tear down Philly or trying to trash talk on the Flyers and their fans because Philadelphia is a formidable team… but honestly they are desperate to have one team from the northeast corridor in the finals to guarantee that media market watching.

And you know what? That’s bad for the league.

Continuing to stack all of their eggs in few baskets is what is detrimental to the league on TV. ESPN’s coverage used to be a huge thing when they visited an NHL city. It was an EVENT. Now? It’s passe. There’s no fire to things any more… Why? Because they are covering most of the same teams nightly and give teams outside the major media markets only passing attention.

Tampa Bay included. San Jose included. Calgary included.

SO instead of building up a series primed to be a big sports rivalry, ABC took game one and made it bland and boring and stacked in the Flyers favor making this series seem more one sided than it is. It didn’t give people a reason to watch besides their local teams playing, it didn’t encourage the nation to watch, and it sure as hell didn’t seem to care about trying to sell either team as great examples of professional ice hockey.

And yet these assclowns are going to get a contract extension from Gary Bettman… Oh well, he doesn’t know better. The last 15 years of his reign have proved it.