Greg Millen: pizzazz producer

by WILLIAM HOUSTON
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
May 24
                                                                            

Greg Millen (above) will join regulars Bob Cole and Harry Neale in the broadcast booth for Hockey Night in Canada coverage of the Stanley Cup final.

This will be the first time Hockey Night has used a three-man booth in years, and the objective is clear: to bring some energy and enthusiasm to the analysis.

Millen's work, mostly with Jim Hughson, has been solid, but Neale kept a low profile in the Ottawa Senators-Buffalo Sabres National Hockey League Eastern Conference final. Cole did most of the talking and Neale proved to be a good listener.

The final will begin on Monday and all games will start at 8 p.m. EDT.

In negotiating the schedule, the CBC and NBC, for the first time, shared the same objective. The CBC wanted to keep its Saturday night time slot. NBC preferred to avoid airing hockey on Friday and Sunday nights, when Law & Order and Dateline NBC, respectively, would earn higher ratings.

That's why Saturday will be the night for hockey on the first weekend of the final, June 2, and the second weekend, June 9, if a sixth game is necessary.

The CBC will be hoping the Senators, after underperforming as an audience producer in the first three rounds of the playoffs, make a breakthrough.

The CBC averaged 1.682 million viewers for the five-game Senators-Sabres series. That was down 15 per cent from the average for the 2006 Western Conference final, which also featured a Canadian team, the Edmonton Oilers, against the Anaheim Ducks, and 10 per cent below the average for the 2004 Western final between the Calgary Flames and San Jose Sharks.

Ottawa-Buffalo's fifth game last Saturday was played in the afternoon, which is a weak time slot (the CBC drew 1.4 million viewers). But the Oilers last year also were handicapped by poor starting times. Three games started at 9 p.m. EDT, which is late in the East. In 2004, the Flames played two afternoon games and had three 10 p.m. starts.

The Senators have yet to produce an audience of two million. That was something the Oilers and Flames achieved several times in their conference finals.

Never again

NBC's decision to pull the plug on last Saturday's overtime period of the Ottawa-Buffalo game will not be repeated, a network spokesman said this week. NBC stopped its coverage at the end of regulation time to go to its Preakness Stakes telecast at 5 p.m. EDT.

“The only reason we left overtime coverage on Saturday was because of contractual obligations with the Preakness that preceded our NHL deal,” Brian Walker of NBC Universal said.

Overtime was transferred to the U.S. cable channel Versus, but NBC viewers were left in the dark.

“I was watching Saturday afternoon and actually yelled at the TV,” a hockey fan in New York wrote in an e-mail.

Television producer Ralph Mellanby, formerly the head of Hockey Night and a long-time Olympic broadcaster, called NBC's move “a travesty.”

“In terms of credibility, the NHL is now a laughingstock,” he said.

NBC did virtually nothing to keep viewers apprised of what was happening in overtime. The Preakness didn't run until well past 6 p.m. EDT, and Ottawa's winning goal was scored at about 5:20 p.m.

Two broadcasters said the NHL would have easily avoided the problem by starting the game at 1 p.m. instead of 2 p.m. The earlier start would have given NBC time to air the overtime period.

The Preakness telecast earned a 5.4 overnight rating (percentage of households tuned in), almost five times the 1.2 for Saturday's hockey telecast. (NBC's telecast of the Sunday overtime game between the Anaheim Ducks and Detroit Red Wings earned a 1.6 overnight.)

Although NBC has some key late-night programming, NBC's telecasts of the Cup final will take priority, Walker said.

Cherry's thumbs up

Last October, Don Cherry gave us his prediction for the Stanley Cup final four. He was wrong on only one, the New York Rangers. The Hockey Night commentator declines to pick the Cup winner because, he says, “The other guys take it personally. I remember one guy coming up and saying, ‘I thought we were friends of yours?' So it's not worth it to me.”

Cherry says the Senators look stronger than the Ducks. “Anaheim I don't think has played a good 60 minutes, at least not against Detroit,” he said. “Ottawa, on the other hand, is just smoking.”

Moe, Larry, and Curly.

Greg Millen is a man NHLers like to call "Lickbag". That's his naickname in those circles.

Well, hey. A lot of us here followed the Vancouver Canucks through the first two rounds of the NHL playoffs, and then probably watched Ottawa a bit more (in the third round) after the Canucks were bounced.

Through all that, I think it's pretty clear Harry Neale is running out of inspiration in the broadcast booth. As Houston mentions in his article, Harry is saying less and less and the broadcast is starving for enthusiasm. (And not of the Pierre McGuire kind that is non-stop yammering...)

I have to say, Greg Millen really isn't that bad. After 12 straight Canuck playoff games listening to Harry, and comparing that to Vancouver's playoff appearances in 2002-04 -- I don't think there's any question who is really the better analyst.

It's Millen.

People with energy on the mic should not retire, like Tommy. However, Harry Neale's time to pack it in has loooooong passed. Good call bringing in Greg Millen. We need some colour commentary!

The best quote from Cole: "Here comes Harold Druken for Buffalo , and he shoots in deep."

Jim Hughson should be calling the play-by-play.  Cole's day is done.

Quoted from TakeitOn

Jim Hughson should be calling the play-by-play.  Cole's day is done.

Well, that goes without saying. Thing is contractual obligations - Cole must do the Stanley Cup Final for that reason.

I believe he's year-to-year now with his deals. So something like that could be reworked for next year. The thing is, Bob is unlikely to agree to a deal that doesn't guarantee him the Stanley Cup Final.

He always kept getting the job under the old regime at CBC Sports, but now that Scott Moore is there, who knows. He definitely holds Jim in high regard, so we'll have to just wait and see what happens...

I've actually found Millen tolerable since  being  paired with Hughson.  In the past, he always seemed so unhappy to be at work  - everything said through gritted teeth.  "If we'd only gone to the point in the replay I wanted....that's not really the best angle"....etc"  Methinks partnering with someone considered #1  (therefore more or less above criticism) caused him not only to look inward but sharpen his game given Hughson's credibility.