The top-seeded Washington Capitals open the Stanley Cup playoffs Wednesday night against the eighth-seeded New York Rangers. Locally, the Comcast SportsNet crew of Al Koken, Russ Thaler and Alan May will host the pregame show, and Joe Beninati and Craig Laughlin will handle the game for the network.
| Where to tune in |
| CSN will carry only the first round of the Capitals’ Stanley Cup playoffs. The conference semifinals will be on Versus. The CSN technical crew likely will do the broadcast work for Versus and TSN. Also, the games can be heard on the Capitals Radio Network. All games air on 1500 AM WFED, and selected games will be simulcast on 106.7 FM “The Fan.” The pregame starts at 7 p.m. with Jonathan Warner and Steve Kolbe. Then when the puck drops, the game broadcast will be handled by Kolbe and analyst Ken Sabourin, with the postgame crew of Warner and executive producer Ben Raby joining the coverage. |
Nationally, the game will be seen on Versus, in Canada it will be on the Sports Network and in New York the Madison Square Garden Network will handle the broadcast. With four networks in the building all covering the same game, it will provide some unique challenges.
Bill Bell is the executive producer of Capitals hockey on CSN, and he also directs the telecasts, so it will be up to him to work out the challenges he faces with so many networks covering the same game.
“We have worked very closely with the NHL on a plan because there are just so many places that you can put cameras in any building,” Bell said. “So we will have around 20 cameras covering the game action, and because that is not the normal way we do things, we will actually share cameras — which fans watching the action will not be able to tell.
“Actually, [sharing the cameras] will allow all four networks to benefit from having more cameras than we would normally have, so in point of fact that actually should make for a better broadcast for all the network covering the Caps-Rangers broadcasts.”
Examiner columnist Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this!
