ESPN just gutted its hockey coverage in the middle of the Stanley Cup playoffs

[doniceage]

Sports teams mutate over a decade, and so the Capitals and Penguins - teams that take the ice Thursday night - will bear almost no resemblance to the ones that played here in 2009. That was the first time the Caps advanced to the second-round in the Rock the Red era, and it was the start of hockey taking center stage in D.C. sports - or as close to center stage as it's ever been.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports...427-story.html

[Devlin]

They don't care.. Also on the downslide.(ESPN) I've only watched them
to check scores on the ticker for years now.

[creasecollector]

This was pretty brutal.

[vbhat]

That's a bummer. Among other things, I really enjoyed Burnside and Lebrun on their Hockey Today podcast. Hopefully they will get other prominent gigs soon.

[RGM81]

Pretty brutal - it's company-wide but obviously the timing on this is really bad for American hockey fans.

[zunato]

I haven't watched ESPN for anything hockey in about 15 years. They haven't cared about the NHL since they lost their broadcast rights. I get my NHL fix from NHL network and assorted websites.

Thinking about it, The only times I ever watch ESPN is to watch the Cubs play. It's so easy with all the apps that are out there to get your sports news and scores.

[jameslacarte]

Gotta luv TSN, Sportsnet & CBC!! You wouldnt see a Canadian station doing this garbage to its Hockey fans..

[pwaldo]

ESPN doesn't care about anything that isn't NBA, NFL, or NCAA football because they overpaid to get the rights to that garbage. Now that overpaying is costing them because they are going to actually start losing money over the next couple of years because they don't bring in enough revenue to offset the cost. The firing of all these people will not even make a dent in the ESPN payroll as the highest paid people all basically kept their job while the "smaller" people lost their jobs.

[dafoefan34]

League based networks have made ESPN redundant. I never watch ESPN and I can't remember the last time I did. I watch NHL Network for league news, NBC Sports for National Games and Fox Sports for regional games. I also listen to NHL Radio on Sirius/XM so I have no need for ESPN at all.

I look at it like the sporting goods industry. Would you rather buy a pair of skates from a national generic chain or a specialist? You can either do one thing exceptionally well or all things mediocre.

[pwaldo]

League based networks have made ESPN redundant.

This is true. But ESPN is on all the basic cable packages while the others are NOT. In a lot of places you have to pay on top of your cable fees just to get them. If they were all on basic cable ESPN would be toast.