More media notes, with a Cherry on top
NBC Sports has figured out a way to Canada-ize its NHL Stanley Cup finals coverage by adding the CBC’s favorite loudmouth, Don Cherry, in some capacity to its broadcasts that begin in June with Games 3 through 7 (after the first two games are shown on Versus). As a result, the CBC will have NBC’s Brett Hull on loan to them for their “Hockey Night in Canada” coverage in some way. NBC starts its playoff coverage Saturday at noon with Pittsburgh-Ottawa Game 2 and Sunday at 10 a.m. with Detroit-Calgary Game 2. On how Cherry will go over on a U.S. hockey broadcast, Hull, who does the NBC studio show with Bill Clement and Ray Ferraro, told reporters: “He tells it like it is. If they did it on a regular basis, he would be just as popular down here as he is up there. Part of the thing that's missing, not with just hockey, but in all coverage in the American sports world, is some personality. I think that's why you see a guy like Terry Bradshaw, as popular as he is. He's not just Mr. PC, going through ‘That was a nice catch and throw.'" Says Cherry, who has been with the CBC since 1980: “A lot of people have written that what I say up here I would never get away with it down in the States. I’ll just go on and do what I have to do. In the States, they wanted me to go on one time in Pittsburgh. Jaromir Jagr, when he had long hair, was with Mario Lemieux and I said, ‘There's Mario and his daughter.’ It didn't go over too good. That was my last time in the States.” Cherry says he believes the best teams in the league are in the Western Conference and is predicting an Anaheim-San Jose matchup to determine who’ll play the Eastern Conference winner. But it won’t preclude Cherry, who according to a 2004 CBC poll was named the seventh greatest Canadian (ahead of Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky) from rooting for a Canadian team. “I've got to root for all the Canadian teams, that's for sure,” he said. “I'd like to see Calgary. There's something about that Calgary club that reminds me of old-time hockey. all scarred up.”
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==Don't pass up the chance to check out the ESPN.com's second annual Barry Melrose Mullet Madness Gallery, honor of the start of the NHL playoffs.
==We're all for Fox Sports Net adding the bilingual Adrian Garcia to its Dodgers pregame show telecast -- a need made obvious by the fact Jose Mota was conducting interviews with many of the Spanish-speaking Angels players for several years now. But to have Garcia pronounce players names with such a think Spanish accent -- in particular, Rafael Furcal -- it only presents a distraction for the English-language listeners who are trying to follow anything he's reporting on. Garcia pulled off a bilingual interview with Furcal on Monday's home opener, and has done similar interviews this week during the series with Colorado. We'll cut him a little more slack at the start, but he's going to have to show more ability as a reporter who asks more than the cliche questions and gives generalized translations to make him more effective.
==Ashley Gomes (right), a contestant on the Golf Channel’s “Big Break VII,” has been given one of the sponsor exemptions on the LPGA’s Ginn Open event this weekend outside of Orlando, Fla. LPGA Tour rookies Kristy McPherson and Sara Lynn Sargent, who competed in the “Big Break VI” at Trump National, are also competing against Gomes. There are currently six former “Big Break” contestants on the LPGA Tour this year. The Golf Channel continues its coverage of the event with the second round today (3:30 p.m.), with CBS doing the final two rounds over the weekend.
==Most interesting note gleaned from this week’s listening to the Jim Rome radio show: After riffing on the fact that Hank Aaron said he would send a telegram to Barry Bonds if he breaks the all-time home-run record, Rome recalled that another antiquated means of communication – the fax machine – used to spit out maybe 100 faxes a day to his show on a normal shift, and up to 300 if the topic was really sparking debate. But these days, a typical show generates about 1,500 emails, he says, and shoots past 2,000 and closer to 3,000 on a hot-topic issue. Such as: "Why does soccer suck?"
==Between Nick Faldo's jumbled British accent and the galleries applauding for every bogey they could see, the Masters' final round coverage on CBS was actually up 8.3 percent from last year (9.1, from 8.4) on the national overnight rating on an Easter Sunday. CBS also reports that almost four million video streams of Masters Extra and Amen Corner Live were streamed at masters.org, and CBS SportsLine.com produced more than 45 hours of free, live streaming video.
==Coverage of the AVP pro beach volleyball tour starts Sunday on FSN Prime Ticket (5 p.m., same-day delayed) from the Miami Open. Mike Goldberg returns on play-by-play with Sinjin Smith as the analyst and Chris McGee on the sidelines. Karch Kiraly, playing his last season on the tour, will also be a third analyst. If he's not playing in the men's final, he'll cover it. If he is, Holly McPeak will be the third voice in. The reverse goes for the women's final coverage.
==In the first of a four-part commercial disguised as a documentary, HBO launches “De La Hoya/Mayweather 24/7” on Sunday (10:30 p.m.), going behind the scenes as Oscar De La Hoya prepares to fight Floyd Mayweather on May 5 – an event carried live on HBO pay-per-view. After the first half-hour episode, which follows the two on an 11-city promotional tour to publicize the bout, two more will air on the following Sundays (April 22 and 29) with the fourth stragetically placed on Thursday, May 3. The first three episodes also conveniently debut after the new episodes of “The Sopranos.”
==In trying to form a Major League Baseball studio show that will rival what the network has done with the NBA, TNT announced last week that Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. will be part of its baseball coverage once it starts doing playoff games at the end of the current season. Ripken will team in the studio with Ernie Johnson Jr., while Gwynn, the current head baseball coach at San Diego State, will do game analysis with Chip Caray. TNT will carry every first-round post-season game as well as the National League Championship Series. Said TNT executive producer Jeff Behnke in last week’s announcement: “What we're doing (with our MLB package) is similar to what we’ve done with our NBA package over the years. We wanted to have some signature voices and very familiar faces who are deeply respected in the game, and I think we definitely have that with Cal and Tony.”
==Local sportscaster Randy Rosenbloom will be in Reno, Nevada to do the blow-by-blow this weekend for the Collegiate National Boxing Championships for CSTV. The 12 finals will be taped by the network and air later this month. Joey Gilbert, a former contestant on “The Contender,” will be the analysis. Boxing is a club sport in college.
==Dick Stockton and Tim McCarver will call the Fox regional coverage (Saturday, 12:30 p.m., Channel 11) of the Angels’ game at Boston, which goes to 75 percent of the country. Houston-Philadelphia (17 percent) and Texas-Seattle (8 percent) are the other two regional games.
==More insight as to why Fox decided to move its NFL Sunday pregame show back from being a roadie to settling back into the confines of the L.A. roofed building came from both Terry Bradshaw and David Hill. Bradshaw told the Shreveport Times: "Taking the show on the road wasn’t good. Viewers let it be known that they didn’t like it. The ratings were down. We had Curt Menefee, Joe Buck in and out. One week you’ve got this personality, the next week that personality. You don’t know where you can go, what you can do, and it showed on the air.” Hill, the Fox Sports CEO, was asked by Broadcasting & Cable magazine if the decision was driven by money: "It was first, second and third a money thing."
==As the race to determine the America’s Cup challenger begins Monday, ESPN Classic will air a special one-hour special, “America’s Cup: 1851-2007” (today, 4 p.m.) hosted by famous retired newsman and avid sailor Walter Cronkite and Gary Jobson, a former America’s Cup champion and Emmy Award-winning TV producer and analyst. The best-of-nine America’s Cup race starts June 23.
==ESPN2’s coverage of the NASCAR Busch Series race at Texas Motor Speedway includes current Nextel Cup driver Dale Jarrett in an analyst role for the first time. The 50-year-old Jarrett, who has 10 Busch telecasts locked into his schedule while he races for Michael Waltrip’s racing team, is looking to move to TV fulltime after he retires following the 2008 season. “This is the perfect chance ESPN is offering me to see if it’s something that I really want to do,” said Jarrett, who has 32 NASCAR Nextel Cup race victories in his career. Jarrett’s father, Ned, was an ESPN NASCAR analyst from 1988-2000. Jarrett will work the telecast (Saturday, 11:30 a.m.) with Marty Reid and Andy Petree. Fox has Sunday's Nextel Cup race from Texas Motor Speedway (10:30 a.m.).
==BET is set to debut an hour-long sports-talk show called “Ballers” to debut on April 20. "Best Damn Sports Show" co-host John Salley will run this one, with former NFL star Hugh Douglas and comedian Guy Torry.
==The NFL Network will use current NFL players Tim Hasselbeck, Jon Runyan, Darren Sharper and DeAngelo Hall as analysts in its coverage of live NFL Europe game telecasts starting Saturday. Former NFL players who’ll also do games include Marshall Faulk, Antonio Freeman, Brock Huard, Danny Kanell, Jon Ritchie and Kelly Stouffer. Faulk will work with Brian Baldinger and Bob Papa on the June 23 World Bowl XV telecast from Frankfurt. The NFL Europe games have proven to be a nice training ground for NFL players interested in honing their broadcasting careers, leading to NFL network TV jobs for Troy Aikman, Daryl Johnston, Bill Maas and Darren Woodson. The NFL Network plans to air a game each Saturday (except on NFL Draft weekend at the end of the month) at either 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. Saturday’s first telecast doubleheader pits Cologne against Hamburg (10 a.m. live) followed by Amsterdam vs. Frankfurt (1 p.m.), and then Berlin-Rhein on Sunday (8 p.m.)
==Turner Broadcasting has set up a new broadband channel for online streaming of United Soccer League First Division games at www.USLive.com. All 12 USL-1 club matches per week can be viewed on demand at the site. The first live match airs tonight (5 p.m.) featuring Rochester vs. Puerto Rico. A season pass runs $49.99 (through May 1), or $9.99 per month. There is also a $3.99 per match fee for a single event. The USL is the largest organization of elite-level soccer leagues in North America and the Caribbean.