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Home News Archive Team Pages Standings Schedule Statistics Features Lacrosse 101 Search The OG Send Feedback! 8 September: NLL releases 2004 schedule |
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NLL signs three-year deal with The ScoreCanadian network to show 20 games in 2004R.A. Philly Outsider's Guide Editor in Chief The Canadian television home of the National Lacrosse League will be The Score through the 2006 season. "We are pleased to be on The Score," NLL commissioner Jim Jennings said today in announcing the three-year contract. "The Score has a hip, young audience that fits our demographic." "[The new TV deal] gives us the best opportunity to grow the league in Canada by putting the games on live national television," Jennings added, addressing a group of Canadian sports executives at the Canada Sports Forum in Hull, Quebec. The Score, which aired selected Ottawa Rebel games in 2001 and 2002, takes over for Rogers Sportsnet, which reduced its number of live telecasts in 2003, the last season of its own three-year contract. Sportsnet could remain associated with the NLL, since the three Canadian teams -- the Calgary Roughnecks, Toronto Rock, and Vancouver Ravens -- will retain the right to sign television deals for games not on The Score. The Score, available in 5.5 million of Canada's eight million cable television homes, will air one NLL game every week of the regular season except Week Two, the only week of the season in which no Canadian teams are in action, and the entire five-game postseason. However, it will air only the All Star Game (Sunday, 22 February) in Week Nine, bypassing Toronto's visit to Vancouver two days earlier. "The commitment that The Score has made to promoting the National Lacrosse League, our teams and our players throughout the season will make this a very powerful national television package for our fans, not only in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, but across the country," Vancouver Ravens governor Tom Mayenknecht said."The 16-week series of featured games spanning the 2003-2004 regular season is solid in itself," Mayenknecht added, "but it's the additional coverage and features provided by The Score and its team of reporters and studio hosts that will offer significant added value for our fans." Naturally, the league's three Canadian teams will get the most air time on The Score. Toronto is slated for eight appearances, including five road games (all, interestingly enough, in the United States). Vancouver and Calgary will appear five and four times, respectively. Five of the seven American teams will show up twice each, with The Score visiting the Philadelphia Wings and Rochester Knighthawks on two separate occasions. San Jose gets only a home game, and Colorado will not be showcased at all; the others will be shown once at home and once on the road. Three telecasts are all-Canada matchups, and the other eleven games showcase one Canadian team. In a related schedule change, Rochester's home game on 31 January, against Toronto, has been moved back a half hour to an 8:00 PM start time. The 2004 NLL schedule on The Score (all times Eastern):
Friday, 26 December - Vancouver at Arizona - 9:30 PM -30- |