Trade deadline day needs a rethink
NHL should devote the whole day to trades and really make it a show
There’s a phrase in the world of television: Jumping the shark.
It goes back to the1970s, when a character on the TV show
Happy Days – the too-cool-forschool Fonzie, in a display of bravery — put on water skis and jumped over a shark. Fans would look back at that episode as the moment when the popular sitcom lost its way and started to go downhill.
Ever since, shows have tried to avoid their own “jumping the shark” moment. At some point on Monday – maybe it was an angry mascot, or the filming of what people had for lunch — NHL trade deadline programming had that feel.
Respected sports journalists were exposed to embarrassingly long moments where nothing was happening, so producers — on TSN, anyway — turned to lowbrow comedy as filler.
“Comedy is a very personal thing,” said Steve Dryden, TSN’s senior managing editor of hockey. “A percentage will like what you do, a percentage will be indifferent and a percentage won’t like it. But we do it this way to add a little bit of levity and to break up the day.”
TSN and Sportsnet are hugely competitive, especially over hockey. Each boasts insiders, former players, coaches and executives — competing to break trades and break down what each move means.
“We allow our imaginations to be unbuttoned, but our journalism is buttoned-down,” said Dryden. “We did all the impor- tant stuff, we did a terrific job and then we had some fun.”
Over at Sportsnet, things were a little more straitlaced, even if commentators such as former Leafs general manager Brian Burke were a bit more bombastic.
Still, maybe it’s time to rethink the trade deadline.
The producers were right to prepare filler, because the trend among NHL GMs is to make the biggest trades well before the day of the deadline. Better to have a good player in your lineup for longer, right? Like Jake Muzzin in Toronto. Or one of the many Carl Hagelin trades this season.
Or they just beat deadline day, like Columbus did in nabbing Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel from Ottawa.
Most of the biggest names were off the board before Monday. Mark Stone was the only prize remaining and, predictably, he went late to Vegas.
As a result, the trade deadline has become a three-hour event at best. The big trades happen in the last hour, around 2 p.m. Eastern, and more interesting deals filter in after the deadline passes, as they’re processed by the league.
So, why not turn the production into something closer to the first night of the NHL draft?
Have the day devoted entirely to trades — no games on deadline day.
Have all the GMs and support staff in the same room, TV cameras following them as they go from table-to-table. Maybe that’s too much, but turning it into a show — something a rights-holder would pay for — would help grow league revenue.
If there were no games, proper analysis could be done after the trades are made.
The NHL, though, doesn’t sound like it wants to change anything. Asked if the league has considered this kind of idea, deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in an email: “I can’t say we have (certainly not to the extent you suggest). Not sure we ever will.”
The networks in question aren’t about to go smaller on their trade coverage. Ratings warrant it. They say enough trades happen early to get the day off to a hot start. The Blue Jackets (Keith Kinkaid) and Jets (Kevin Hayes) were on the move well before noon on Monday.
The day was a ratings hit for TSN, which reached an average audience of 143,000 viewers (61 per cent more than Sportsnet, TSN said). The 10-hour special reached a total of 1.9 million unique Canadian viewers, an increase of five per cent from last year.
“There is no indication or any reason to make it smaller,” said Dryden. “Are there lulls over a 10-hour period? Sure, but we like to think we offer quantity and quality.”