

A little supplement Basic Mike's info  :

For Sundday's opener on ABC, these are the announcing crews :

Devils/Isles at Pittsburgh - Gary Thorne(play-by-play),Bill Clement(color)
and Al Morganti roaming the halls outside the dressing rooms.
This telecast will primarily seen on the East Coast.

St.Louis at Chicago - Mike Emrick(play - by play),Jim Schoendfeld(color)
and Tom Mees roaming the halls.
This telecast will primarily be seen in the Midwest and parts of the South.

LA at Calgary - Al "Do You Believe in Mircales?" Michaels(play by play),
John Davidson(color) and Mark Jones as a roaming reporter.
This telecast will be seen in the Western USA.

Montreal's naitive,Jon Saunders will be hosting in the studio.

ABC will do "Up and Close and Personal" with Mario during Saturday's
Wide World of Sports(4:30EDT).

Sunday will be the first NHL playoff or regular network telecast in 13 years...
not counting those silly All-Star games on NBC for the last few years...

For Sunday's games,ABC will use 8 mikes(2 behind on the goal),super-super-slo-mo,
close-ups of player's faces at face-offs. ESPN/ABC will not be able to
use its new favorite toy,the ice-level shot, in Pittsburgh where too many
seats would have to removed to employ it...


In case of a blowout in progress in Pittsburgh,ABC will switch to Chicago
game but will come back to the Pittsburgh game for updates or if the game
gets closer(Ha!)..

ABC expects huge ratings(by hockey standards) since all 3 Top US TV-markets
are involved - NY metro area(NY Islanders/NJ Devils),Chicago(BlackHawks),
and LA(Kings).

Stay tuned,

Thanks Mike,