"The fans are standing up to them. The security guards are standing up to them. The peanut vendors are standing up to them! By God, if I could get down there, I'd be standing up to them."
Panasonic and the NHL are teaming up this season to bring the exciting world of professional hockey into your living room. Literally. While not the matchup between Alexander the Great and Sid the Kid that we were hoping to see in 3D, the NHL has decided to showcase the world's most exciting sport on Hockey Night in Canada with two games to be broadcast in 3D.
The first game scheduled for broadcast on the CBC (affectionately known as the Communist Broadcasting Corporation to those of us who grew up in the Great White North) will be on December 11th, when the Toronto Maple Leafs host the Montreal Canadiens at the Air Canada Center in Toronto. Both teams should already be struggling for a playoff spot in the tough Eastern Conference (so soon? It's the Leafs for crying out loud. 43 seasons of futility since they last hoisted Lord Stanley's mug), but a Leafs-Habs game always draws a huge audience coast-to-coast so it should be an interesting experiment. We can't wait to see Don "Grapes" Cherry's suit that night. Plaid in 3D. May want to keep those motion sickness bags close.
The second game scheduled for February 20th on Hockey Night in Canada is between the Calgary Flames and the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL's Heritage Classic. While we applaud the partnership between Panasonic, CBC Sports, and the NHL, we question the choice of the Habs-Flames. Wouldn't it make more sense to broadcast the 2010 All-Star Game where all of the league's talent will be on display. We hope that Panasonic will extend its sponsorship to games south of the border so that we can see Ovechkin lay a beating on Sidney Crosby in mouth-watering 3D. It will be a ratings bonanza for the NHL and a huge reason for fans of the frozen game to pull the trigger on a 3D HDTV.
Slapshot in 3D would be the greatest movie ever. We're starting a collection to have it made.
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