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2025-26 Canes Miscellaneous Thread

Exactly what Dundon did with the Canes broadcast crew.

As much as I like John Forslund and Chuck Kaiton, as a fan of this franchise well back into the Hartford days, I can't thank Dundon enough for turning this franchise into a consistent winner. Yes he comes in and smashes things and disrupts the norm. And the results? Go back 8 seasons and tell anyone the Canes would make the playoffs 8 years in a row, win a second Cup, and solidify a long term future in Raleigh with one of the League's highest average attendance. They would have called you nuts.
 
HeyKurtz said:
Yes, but there will still be NHL Network-exclusive games that you won't be able to access even if you have YouTube TV and ESPN Ultimate.
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That’s still one of my only pet peeves with YouTube TV! The biggest question is why? The subscriber base has gotten pretty huge for YouTube TV, why on earth is the NHL Network still not offered and how does it serve the NHL or YTTV to not be negotiating a deal with that company to make it available?
 
cmaleski2 said:
Exactly what Dundon did with the Canes broadcast crew.

As much as I like John Forslund and Chuck Kaiton, as a fan of this franchise well back into the Hartford days, I can't thank Dundon enough for turning this franchise into a consistent winner. Yes he comes in and smashes things and disrupts the norm. And the results? Go back 8 seasons and tell anyone the Canes would make the playoffs 8 years in a row, win a second Cup, and solidify a long term future in Raleigh with one of the League's highest average attendance. They would have called you nuts.
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It’s not just Dundon either. Columbus let go their radio crew and will simulcast TV and radio going forward. Other teams in other sports are moving in the same direction as contracts allow. The revenues just don’t add up for stand alone radio broadcasts anymore.
 
jeffbear said:
So, 6 broadcast games and 6 more national streaming games? I mean, it’s more than normal.
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Also note the adjusted start times. The headline says 6 games, there are only 5 with asterisks, including a 6:30 start on 1/28 against the Islanders But the 6th is A non-national TV game on 11/22 at the Rangers

Hers is the chart with games for each team. The Pens and Bruins lead with 20, Flyers have 19, Rangers have 18, Blackhawks, Red Wings, Wild and Caps have 17. At the other endfor American teams the Preds have 3, Columbus has 2. Edmonton leads Canadian teams with 8, Montreal has 6, Toronto. 3, Winnipeg 1, Calgary, Ottawa and Vancouver have none.


View: https://x.com/puckreportnhl/status/2092663912969728256?s=61
 
Same old, same old, slightly modified. Carolina gets the Cup win and gets less games than every American market team they beat in the playoffs. Meanwhile they give perhaps the best young player in the league (Celebrini) even less games and managed to forget that Utah and Anaheim are among the most watch-able teams in the league. While the most games go to Boston and Pittsburgh. He at least people will have plenty of chances to watch Pasta and Sid. You simply cannot build viewership if you don’t allow smaller market teams more airtime when they’re good/entertaining.
 
18 to the Rangers?! I bet that's a very watchable product. The Canadian teams are taking it on the chin for U.S. broadcasts, of course the reverse is true on Canadian network broadcasts.
 
I mean, I get it, but the reality is that even NY Rangers fans don't want to watch their team. It would be great not to subject the rest of us to that dumpster fire so many times.
 
I say this all the time, but this is Bettman’s way. They chase the ratings they already have instead taking risks and trying to capture new viewers in developing markets. Look at the difference between the local reaction to winning the Cup in 2006 and 2026 … it’s night and day. The market growth over 20 years happened locally and organically and was 100% driven by winning. Great, right? But the league did absolutely nothing to foster or support that growth other than to let us have the team in the first place and then do the dead flat minimum to treat the Hurricanes like an NHL team. But NHL teams are all treated the same, now are they? No. The ones with more established fan bases … those are the ones that get treated like first class citizens.

Again, are we simply trying to satisfy the fans we already have or are we trying to grow a sport here? I know that Bettman would say he’s trying to grow the sport, but he’s not. Not really. He’s just trying to protect what he’s already got and then counting on the general competition cycle will bring in enough new people to replace the ones who age out. I mean, God forbid you reward teams that are actually good and/or play actual watch-able hockey with premium air time. If you MUST lean into NY and Chicago and Boston, then put them on when they’re playing against good/fun teams. When you stumble into a Cellebrini, put his butt on TV when he’s young and fun and driving new eyeballs.
 
It’s a business. Remember the mottos ‘we don’t eat our children’ and ‘what can you do for me today?‘
 
Yeah, a business that would make more money with a bigger audience … that they refuse to make any sincere efforts to grow.
 
jeffbear said:
Yeah, a business that would make more money with a bigger audience … that they refuse to make any sincere efforts to grow.
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I'll respectfully disagree, There is a balance you need to keep here between generating money from your existing customers and growing your business to reach more customers. TV contract revenue is a significant source of revenue and the league has to defer to the networks who are trying to maximize the audiences for these games, which translates into their willingness to pay higher rights fees for them.

The other factor that you're not thinking about--which, as someone who has spent is entire career in media research, I can tell you in very important--is time zone. The bottom line is that San Jose will play 62% their games in the Pacific time zone; late starts back East translate to smaller audiences. Every one of the non-Pacific division teams will play fewer than 15% of their games in the Pacific time zone.

I will not argue that the NHL is led by brilliant marketers, but I believe that--despite their mixed success--the league has grown tremendously in its appeal under Bettman's tenure, through expansion markets, outdoor games, international tournaments, and other efforts. Who would even imagine a Stanley Cup Finals series between teams based in Las Vegas and Raleigh 35 years ago? The fact that such a series generated strong ratings is indicative of the fact that the league's fan base has enjoyed solid growth.

Want to showcase Macklin Celebrini to grow the fan base? Put Sharks games versus the Rangers, Bruins, Flyers, etc. on national TV.
 
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