According to NHL executives, the league is looking into MSG+3K's decision to re-air a game it already re-aired this summer, a game that prompted Islanders fans to irreverently organize a "social event" to "bond with fellow fans" while watching the teams 9-3 victory over the increasingly annoying division rival Pittsburgh Penguins.
The game, which took place in February, was re-aired by MSG+++ during the season within a week of its first live airing, and again multiple times during the spring and summer, in a curious attempt by the Cablevision-owned network to appeal to Islanders fans. While the NHL regularly re-airs games on its NHL Network and encourages rights holders to re-air games that NHL fans actually enjoyed, it takes issue with a league member explicitly admitting that its fans enjoyed an event that contained incidents the Kremlin league tacitly formally cashes in on frowns upon.
"We air these games and allow the re-airing of these games for historical purposes only," said NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, who is still completing the "How to Banally Button Up like Bettman" series courses in his MBA program.
"We are outraged to learn that fans are actually watching these games for enjoyment of any sort, and it pains us to hear league members enable that enjoyment. That is why we have rerun the Predators 4-1 first-round Game 1 playoff victory over the Ducks approximately 17 times since June."
"Seriously," Daly continued, "Who wants to watch that Preds-Ducks game but for historical record-keeping or counting scoring chances? Just two teams from that ... non-Eastern time zone over there. Moving forward we plan on only airing pregame and post-game content over the summer months to help prevent any interest from uprising."
Asked why the NHL's proprietary NHL Network re-aired several times a brawl-filled Feb. 9 Bruins-Canadiens game where the teams combined for 182 penalty minutes, including a fight between Carey Price and Tim Thomas, Daly said:
"That's different. For one, those two teams are historical rivals who we regularly promote," Daly explained. "For another, that game was received by national media and talking monkeys as a 'fun' example of 'old-time hockey.' And furthermore, both Price and Thomas admitted after the game their fight was essentially a lark, and not an act of real emotion borne of real grievances. As a league, we tend to encourage fights that don't have any basis in actual bitterness between players nor relation to the context of the on-ice competition, and we will happily re-air only those such events."
"Purely for historical reasons, of course," Daly hastened to add.
At press time, Daly refused to provide a timetable or list of options for the league's review of this dangerous situation which threatens the league's sterling credibility. However, people close to anonymous league sources who know people close to anonymous league executives say that the league's review should be completed "about when the review of Marian Gaborik's check from behind on Frans Nielsen is finished."
When asked about that analogy from anonymous people close to league sources, Daly said, "I'm not going to comment on any timetables or hypotheticals...
"But I will categorically say that Radek Martinek's pouncing on Gaborik after that hit is not condoned nor is it to be celebrated, and we'd never allow that Islanders 6-2 victory over the Rangers to be re-aired because there were fights in it between combatants actually trying to hurt each other as if engaged in some sort of rivalry. In this league we celebrate three-minute enforcers risking their cranial health to fight for show in non-game contexts. Any fisticuffs or retribution in response to actual prior grievances is expressly prohibited, and we will diligently look into any instances where a team re-airs such footage."
"This is similar to and consistent with our policy not to promote blindside hits to the head," Daly added, as he took a call from Mario Lemieux.
Around the NHL: Elsewhere, the Globe and Mail's Dave Shoalts reports that the league investigation of the re-reairing of the 9-3 victory is actually a way of distracting media from something sinister going on in Phoenix.
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Note: Post topic inspired by metalcocounut's comment in the original "looking into" thread. This is tagged as an LHH Zeitgeist post, which means it's satire and not to be taken literally. Any similarity to actual league statements, policy or logical fallacies is purely coincidental and a product of the absurdity of our times.