I did want to highlight another implication, one you implicitly address when confronting the fact that ESPN’s NHL coverage has been so dramatically poor in recent years due to their lack of incentive with no broadcast rights. From a broadcasting perspective, the NHL Lockout is a huge deal for NBC, whose NBC Sports channel was hoping to capitalize on its Olympics rebranding (from the original Versus) with hockey in the Fall. Additionally, in Canada CBC has chosen to air “Classic” games in place of the usual “Hockey Night in Canada,” a decision that some have criticized for prioritizing old hockey games over new original programming.

What I’m highlighting, I suppose, is that one could write an entire’s week worth of blog posts on the media implications of this Lockout – thanks for getting the conversation started.