Why, oh why, are Dallas Stars fans ‘punished’ with these late playoff games?
However frustrated you may be with Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League is No. 1 among the “four majors” in taking blunt objects and repeatedly hitting itself over the head.
The latest example is the absurd, and borderline offensive, start times to the home games for the Dallas Stars in these Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Dallas Stars are in the second round of the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs, and will host the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series.
Game time is listed at 8:30 p.m. In reality, puck drop will be closer to 8:50 p.m. The series should be sponsored by Shorten Your Life Energy Drink.
When the Stars played the Minnesota Wild in the first round, it was a diet of 8:50 p.m. starts. Game 1 against the Wild ended in double OT, and at about 1 a.m.
These start times really would not be a problem if the Stars played their home games in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles or Maui. The Stars, however, remain in a fly over state, stuck in the Central Time zone.
This a Middle Earth problem. Among a host of other failures, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to pass legislation that would allow Texans to change daylight savings on a daily basis.
If, and this is 98-point, all caps, bold IF, Game 1 ends in regulation, it will be about 11:25 p.m. If it goes to overtime, God be with you.
Take your complaints not to the Dallas Stars, but the good people at the NHL.
“This is all about the NHL’s national TV contract with ESPN and Turner (Sports),” Dallas Stars team president Brad Alberts said Monday morning in a phone interview. “The schedules are all done through the league and they are trying to figure out TV schedules. ESPN and Turner have NBA playoff games they are trying to schedule, too.
“We have nothing to do with it. We complain to the league. (Stars owner) Tom Gaglardi has complained to (NHL commissioner) Gary Bettman, and we get the answer of, ‘It’s the national TV deal.’ What are you going to do?”
The answer is complain. Complain so more.
Go to bed.
This is the trade a sports league makes when they sell their games to a TV network; in exchange for a giant pile of money, the networks dictate start times that are convenient for them, not the ticket-paying customer.
For the average sports, and Stars fan, staying up to watch a playoff game should not require four pots of coffee. For the average sports, and Stars fan, staying up to watch a playoff game should not require a 24-hour recovery period.
The problem today is the same as it’s been for about the last 20 or so years.
“Teams in the central time zone get screwed with it; the Dallas Mavericks have the same problem,” Alberts said. “We get treated like we’re in the west even though we’re in the central.
“We are always the second game of a TV double header. East coast teams get the 6:30 starts, and teams in the central or west get the 8:30. The NBA is the same way.”
A solution ... really doesn’t exist.
As long as there are just one or two TV networks that carry the national games, the time zone that feels the back-end of a double header will always be those in the middle.
Those out west are perfectly OK with a 9 p.m. ET start time.
“We want a national TV contract and this is just what we have to deal with it,” Alberts said. “(The networks) say, ‘You can’t talk out of both sides of your mouth,’ and they’re not wrong. It’s true.”
The players and staffers don’t much care for it, either.
“After we won Game 6 (in Minnesota to end the first round series against the Wild), we’re all celebrating in the locker room and on the board it says, ‘First bus, midnight,’” Alberts said. “We didn’t get to the hotel until 12:45 a.m., and most of us couldn’t fall asleep until 2 a.m.”
This isn’t going to change any time soon.
The good news is that the start time for Game 2 is TBD.
