Canucks and Beyond

Hockey Television

01/03/2008 at 3:45pm EST

From the Canadian Press,

NHLers past and present are jumping over the boards and onto TV screens in record numbers. Viewers of Showcase’s “Rescue Me” have seen Team Canada hero Phil Esposito sneak into some of that dark comedy’s funnier scenes the past two seasons. (Star and executive producer Denis Leary, a Boston boy, is a big hockey nut).

The made-in-Canada comedy “Rent-A-Goalie,” also on Showcase, has also featured Espo this season, along with brother Tony, Daryl Sittler, Tie Domi, Mike Palmateer and Paul Coffey.

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Then there were those horrible ads for Steelback suds. The spots featured a bunch of ex-NHLers, including, once again, those two Esposito boys, sitting around in a dressing room enjoying a few brewskis with former beer exec Frank D’Angelo.

Skating into the thick of it now is “MVP,” a steamy new prime-time soap starting next Friday, Jan. 11, on CBC. Already being touted as “Desperate Hockey Wives,” the series stars Kristen Booth, Lucas Bryant, Deborah Odell and several others in what the CBC press binder claims is a “glimpse through the keyhole” at the private lives of hockey players and their “puck bunnies.”

I’m sorry to say, I’m actually looking forward to “MVP”. Admittedly, I’ve never watched the American show “Desperate Housewives” but then again, I’m doubtful any of them ever started swinging hockey sticks at each other in a cat fight…

On the other side of the equation, there’s the non-hockey programming that sometimes shows up on NHL broadcasts. Things like sending Ian Laperriere out for a day as a Denver garbage collector, etc.

I once had high hopes for Canucks TV to shake things up occasionally with fun stuff, but it’s seldom proven to be true.

Easily, the most entertaining “original programming” -type thing I’ve ever seen on their PPV offerings was just this week, an intermission interview with Will Sasso. Amusing, which is more than I can say for most of that PPV, $12.95-a-shot, production.

And on that note, via The Crazy Canucks, I see that Sasso was profiled on the Canucks official website back in December:

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