TV blacked out of NCAA Hockey East Regional

Much to the chagrin of local television producers and fans of University of Maine hockey, none of the NCAA Hockey Eastern Regional playoff games in Providence, R.I., will be broadcast on live television.

So aside from the 2,000 Maine fans who are traveling to the Providence Civic Center to cheer on the Bears, no one will be able to see Maine play in its second round regional game.

Due to sluggish sales of advance tickets, members of the Providence tournament organizing committee asked the NCAA Division I hockey tournament committee this week to black out live TV coverage of each game.

A blackout, it was reasoned, would force more people to buy tickets since that would be the only way to see any games.

Rather than initiate a local blackout and allow games to be broadcast back to other states such as Maine, the NCAA committee voted for a complete blackout of all East Regional games since they had no official written guidelines for dealing with such a situation.

“Officially, there is no clear-cut policy regarding ticket sales at local venues vs. TV coverage,” said Laing Kennedy, chairman of the hockey committee and Cornell University’s athletic director.

“Unofficially, our first loyalty was to the local committee trying to sell tickets for the games,” Kennedy said. “This is the first time something like this has come up, but it shows why we need written guidelines for dealing with these situations in the future.”

Kennedy said he has already added the need for a written policy to the committee’s agenda during their conference at the Final Four tournament in Albany, N.Y., April 2-4.

Unfortunately, that does little to appease hockey fans hoping to see the games, and TV station managers who were hoping to have their broadcasting bids accepted by the NCAA.

“Obviously, we’re very disappointed,” said Paul Doughty, sports producer at WCSH-TV (Channel 6) in Portland.

Maine Broadcasting Company submitted the actual bid. MBC includes WCSH, WLBZ-TV of Bangor, W57AQ-TV of Calais, and W04AK of Waterville.

Doughty was contacted 30 minutes before the winning bid was to be announced Tuesday afternoon and told the NCAA had decided on the blackout to protect the interests of the Providence committee.

“I just wish they’d told us sooner,” said Doughty. “We had hotel rooms booked, people scheduled to work… We’ve lost money that will never be recouped.”

“I was real disappointed that a majority of our fans would not have the opportunity to see Maine play,” said Ian McCaw, UMaine’s associate athletic director for external affairs.

Kennedy is not unsympathetic to the plights of people like Doughty and McCaw.

“The bottom line is we have to develop an offical policy,” said Kennedy. “My personal feeling, as an A.D., is the more games we can get on TV, the better.”

One good thing that may result from all this is greater exposure of college hockey on local, regional, and national TV.

Kennedy earlier this year made a proposal to the NCAA Executive Committee which would make it easier for TV stations to buy the rights to hockey broadcasts, but it was rejected.

“I feel now, with the great interest in these playoff games shown by television stations and media such as you, I have substantial ammunition to take to the committee to back up the proposal next time,” Kennedy said.

Although this was the first time a situation arose to necessitate a blackout, couldn’t the same thing happen all over again at the Final Four in Albany?

“No. It will not occur,” said Kennedy. “That’s not a danger.”