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It’s official. University of Maine hockey won’t be on television this year, and neither will regular-season Black Bear football games.
The one-year TV ban on UMaine’s hockey team as part of the NCAA-imposed sanctions announced earlier this month will not be postponed a year.
David Swank, chairman of the NCAA Committee on Infractions, had mentioned that Maine might have the option of postponing the ban a year due to an existing television contract with Maine Broadcasting System.
MBS – made up of sister stations WLBZ (Channel 2) in Bangor and Portland’s WCSH (Channel 6) – and UMaine are in the final year of a three-year TV deal.
But UMaine officials didn’t include the TV ban in their formal appeal. The penalties that were appealed were the ban on postseason play in the 1996-97 season and the reduction in football scholarships.
“If we don’t appeal the ban, we don’t have grounds to request a postponement and we don’t have any legal obligations in the contract that would allow us to seek some kind of waiver,” said John Diamond, UMaine spokesman.
Football games were lost due to uncertainty related to the broadcast facilities at Mahaney Diamond, where as many as three UMaine football games were to be played because of the ongoing renovations on the football field.
“They’re not doing any football games because, until yesterday, we weren’t sure the facility would meet their needs,” said Diamond, referring to Wednesday’s announcement that all home games will be played at Alumni Field.
MBS officials briefly thought about televising Maine’s football opener Thursday night against Northeastern University at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland, but elected not to pre-empt NBC’s Thursday night lineup.
“On Thursday night, it’s a power-packed NBC lineup that’s hard to disrupt, given its popularity,” said WCSH program director Mike Marshall. “We’ve done games from Fitzpatrick before, but unfortunately with the game being on Thursday, it’s not something we could do. If it was Friday, I would have loved to do the game.”
The original TV contract called for MBS to air any combination of 13 UMaine games selected from the following sports: hockey, football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball.
With the loss of both hockey and football, MBS and UMaine agreed to an alternative arrangement.
The new deal calls for MBS to air one men’s and four women’s basketball games in January and February, with an option to pick up one extra men’s or women’s game if it can be cleared with the AMERICA EAST conference.
According to Marshall, MBS aired about 10 football and hockey games combined each year. The sharp drop in the number of televised games forced UMaine to make other concessions.
“We also agreed that the amount of air time they make available to the university would be cut and the amount cut was 50 percent of what the original contract called for,” Diamond explained.
That means MBS will air $45,000 worth of UMaine promotional spots instead of $90,000.
Both Marshall and Diamond said they were happy with the compromise and the ease at which it was reached.
“We were more interested in dealing with the TV-related penalty this year and getting it over with,” said Diamond.
“That’s been the strength of our relationship. We’ve been able to work kinks out along the way. This year the kinks were a little bigger than usual,” said Marshall.
You can take the “interim” out of Michelle Bonner’s job title at Bangor TV station WVII (Ch. 7).
Bonner, who became the interim weekend sports anchor-reporter after Mike Schoor took a similar position in Birmingham, Ala., last month, officially got the job this week.
The Northeastern grad interned three years at WCVB in Boston and was a news reporter at WVII eight months before moving to sports.
UMaine on TV
Men’s and women’s basketball on Maine Broadcasting System
Saturday, Jan. 4 – Boston University at Maine women, 1 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 11 – New Hampshire at Maine men, 1 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 18 – Delaware at Maine women, 12:30 p.m.
Friday, Jan. 24 – Drexel at Maine women, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 15 – Towson State at Maine women, 1 p.m.
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