Source : Globe & Mail

Hockey day in Canada has been claimed by TSN almost as quickly as it was dropped by the CBC.

The sports channel said yesterday it will air its own version of the CBC's Hockey Day in Canada telecast on Feb. 19.

Titled Hockey Lives Here: Canada's Game, TSN's six-hour show will start at noon EST and include coverage of the Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament, a men's university game in Thunder Bay and a report from the training camp of the national women's team.

"We felt that there needs to be a celebration of the sport in this country," TSN president Phil King said. "So, we were able to pull this together very quickly."

Earlier this week, The Globe and Mail reported that the CBC, which created Hockey Day In Canada, had cancelled the show because of the National Hockey League lockout.

Hockey Day first aired in 2000 and in a short time became a Canadian tradition. It even inspired talk of a national holiday.

The CBC's decision was sharply criticized by some employees who felt the network should have gone ahead with a Hockey Day telecast next month, despite the lockout.

Nancy Lee, the head of CBC Sports, said the show was dropped because it wasn't viable without the NHL tripleheader involving the six Canadian teams.

King feels Canadian interest in hockey extends beyond the NHL.

"We know Canadians love the NHL, but Canadians love the sport of hockey," he said. "We're going to try to do some grass-roots games and features and profiles and things of that nature."

The show, which will originate from the TSN studios in Toronto, will air novelty items such as the world pond hockey championship from Plaster Rock, N.B., and a piece on how to build a backyard rink.

But it will also broadcast features on hockey in small communities across the country, Canadians playing in Europe and a repeat of the Canadian junior team's championship game.

As well, TSN's French language channel, RDS, will have a hockey show. ESPN Classic Canada, a TSN digital channel, will carry vintage hockey games and the NHL Network, partly owned by TSN, will televise shows with Canadian hockey themes. Affiliates belonging to CTV, which owns TSN, also will be used.

The broadcast team will include TSN's Pierre McGuire, Gord Miller, Bob McKenzie, James Duthie, Dave Hodge, Gino Reda, Dave Randorf, Glenn Healy and Brian Burke.

In cancelling Hockey Day, Lee said the CBC had neither the money nor the staff to produce the show. But others believed a condensed version could have been put on the air.

Hockey Day was created by Alan Clark, then the head of CBC Sports, and John Shannon, who was executive producer of the CBC's Hockey Night In Canada.

"I'm personally disappointed [the CBC cancelled the show], because you never like to see something you've created disappear," said Shannon, who is now head of club-owned Leafs TV and Raptors NBA TV. "I've told Nancy that I disagreed with her.

"If we really believe in its place in our country, it's the game of hockey -- not the game of NHL hockey -- that is important. That's why I would have liked to see it continue."

In addition to TSN's celebrating hockey, the show will help promote its hockey brand, in the absence of game telecasts this year. Spots involving TSN programs Off the Record and That's Hockey will be added to the lineup.

But another aspect of TSN doing the hockey special is the potential to show up the CBC. There has been a degree of enmity between the two networks.

The CBC outbid TSN for curling rights last year. There was tension at the Olympic Games, where TSN, as the CBC's cable partner, felt it wasn't getting its fair share of the secondary programming.

What's more, CTV, in a partnership with Rogers Media, is competing against the CBC for TV rights to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the 2012 Summer Games.

© The Globe and Mail