Versus Has A Successful Opening Night

Versus had a record breaking night for their opening telecast of the Bruins/Flyers game. 874k tuned in, topping last year’s Flyers/Penguins game. That telecast previously held the Versus opening night record with 720k viewers. In addition, the 2011 Faceoff game is the most watched regular season game in Versus history besting a Flyers/Pens game that drew 750k last December.

Last night’s game was the second highest opening night ever for the league in the US. The record was set in 2003 on ESPN when 927k viewers tuned into an Avs/Pens matchup.

The late game on Versus wasn’t as successful but that’s to be expected since involved a Canadian team and had some stiff TV competition since MLB was going on at the same time. The Pens/Canucks game drew 324k viewers. That’s down from last years Hawks/Avs number of 430,000.

Overall, it was a successful first night to the season. The ratings were up five percent from last season and the presentation was improved. I’ll have some more thoughts about the week’s TV coverage later this weekend once I get off the road.

 

NHLN US to Launch New Weekly Highlights Show

The NHL Network is adding a new original show to its US schedule. Titled simply, NHL Plays of the Week, it will debut October 15 at 6 PM EST with new episodes every Saturday. Curiously, the show is not currently on the Canadian NHL Network schedule but perhaps it will also find its way there.

This is a welcome addition to the schedule since the NHL hasn’t had a weekly highlights show since NHL Cool Shots went off the air in 2004. The NHLPA stopped producing its long running Be A Player program shortly afterwards.

Before those two shows, there was Hockey Week which aired from the late 80’s until 1996. HW was syndicated and aired on several regional sports networks. It featured Mike Emrick narrating weekly highlights was had various presenting sponsors including Power Stick and Brut.