from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

...the irony is, just when you think the conspiracists might be running out of code, out comes an NHL TV arm that decrees the only game to be played on Sunday night should begin at 10 p.m. ET.

Why, you ask?

Here’s where I get to add to the intrigue:

It’s an ESPN game, and even though my bosses at Sportsnet paid the equivalent of the GDP of a small European nation for the rights to televise games like this one — with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl fighting for their playoff lives — well, the Red Sox and Cardinals are playing on Sunday Night Baseball, you see, a game that starts at 7 p.m. ET.

Why not use ESPN2, you ask?

“Tsk, tsk,” the ESPN execs said. “We’ve got American Cornhole League at 9 p.m.”

That’s right, Canada.

It’s the ACL SuperHole IV, Prelim No. 4, live from Fort Worth, Texas, that has Sunday evening booked on The Deuce.

You folks out East who want to see what a real “core” player looks like when the chips are down? Ya, you’ll have to stay up past midnight to see the third period.

Of course, Western Conference fans and media aren’t immune to the theory that Gil Stein never lost his seat as NHL commissioner, and was still secretly pulling the strings from his compound in Arizona before his passing last year.

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