Hot Stove Not So Hot

Author: Illegal Curve

October 26, 2009

Illegal Curve`s E-Take is sponsored every Monday by Immunocal, the elite athlete nutritional supplement for muscular performance since 1996.  www.wellnesswinnipeg.com.

It’s Saturday night.  The beer is well stocked and on ice.  The chips are the perfect combination of vinegar with just a hint of salt.  The HD tuner is set, the surround sound is cranked up, and the remote is where it belongs, in your hand.  As you do your national duty, and settle in for a double header of hockey action on Hockey Night in Canada, an event takes place off the ice, during the second intermission, that used to be must see TV for your average hockey fan.  That event is The Satellite Hot stove, but the key phrase in the previous sentence is, used to be.

Once upon a not so long ago time, Satellite Hot Stove was the main resource a hockey fan turned to in order to hear information on what was really happening with their favourite team and their favourite player.  If player X was really struggling to start the season you turned to Satellite Hot Stove to find out he showed up to training camp 15 pounds overweight.  If your favourite team, the team you live and die for, struggled to start the season you wanted to know why, and it was Satellite Hot Stove that gave you the answer.

For reasons beyond the understanding of mere mortals like myself, CBC, in their typically infinite wisdom, decided that the entire format needed overhauling, in spite of the fact that the existing format was overwhelmingly popular.  Out went reliable, informed, connected journalists, and in came ex-players, whose only attribute and skill seemed to be an ability to say the words “you know” multiple times per sentence.  It went from must see TV, to must avoid TV, unless you were a college kid and wanted to play a drinking game with the players’ reliance on the aforementioned use of the phrase “you know.”  The changes were a classic example of television executives out-thinking themselves to the detriment of the quality of the broadcast.

To the credit of the CBC, the experiment with the players was quickly shelved.  To say it was an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement along the lines of saying that the fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs have unreasonable expectations for their team year in and year out.  However, rather than go back to the tried and true successful Satellite Hot Stove, they re-jigged the format again, this time combining journalists with failed NHL executives.  The only reason I can come up with for the refusal to go with what was proven to be successful, is that in the TV industry it is better to constantly re-format than it is to admit you were wrong to fiddle with a successful property in the first place.

That synopsis leads us to where we are today with the Satellite Hot Stove.  No longer is it must see TV for its information providing attributes, nor is it must avoid TV like it was during the “ex-players era”.  Now it’s a combination of the two, where on any given week you don’t know what you will get from it.  It’s compelling in the same way a car crash is.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the one constant throughout all of these incarnations of the Satellite Hot Stove.  That constant is the premier studio host in Canadian television today, Ron MacLean.  It is a testament to the skills and professionalism of Ron MacLean that not only has he managed to be the loyal CBC soldier despite these constant changes all around him, but he has become a voice of trust to many Canadians.  Consider him the Walter Cronkite of the hockey world.

What does the future hold for Satellite Hot Stove?  That is a great question, but unfortunately it is an unanswerable question as the future is in the hands of CBC executives, of which I am not one.  What do I want to see, as an avid hockey fan?  That’s simple.  Turn on your television these days, flip on any sporting event, and all you see is throwback jerseys.  The popularity of the Edmonton Oilers blue and orange oil drop jersey, and the San Diego Chargers AFL powder blue jersey prove that retro is cool again.  This needs to be the mantra of the decision makers responsible for Satellite Hot Stove.  Retro is cool, and so the second intermission hot stove needs to get on the retro bandwagon.  I know hockey fans from coast to coast to coast will thank you.

Written by Drew Mindell. drew@illegalcurve.com.

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