The Blackhawks have called a press conference for Monday at the Stadium to announce that the team has decided to proceed with pay-per-view telecasts of their home games during the National Hockey League playoffs. The postseason starts in early April, and if the Hawks can advance to the Stanley Cup finals, it wouldn`t end until late May.
Owner Bill Wirtz has been criticized in recent years for not allowing his club`s home games to be shown on SportsChannel or some other basic outlet in Chicago, such as WGN. SportsChannel shows all 40 regular-season road games on the 80-game schedule.
Other NHL clubs that have used pay-per-view have based the price for watching a televised game on its lowest-priced arena ticket. If the Hawks stick with this standard, TV viewers probably will be asked to pay about $22.50 a game, which is the least expensive seat in the Stadium during the playoffs.
The pay-per-view games are expected to be available to viewers on their community-access channels, not directly on SportsChannel. But the usual radio- TV broadcast duo of Pat Foley and Dale Tallon call the play, as always.
Wirtz is expected to consider pay-per-view for next regular season as well if it`s deemed a success in the playoffs.
– Now that the Unified Team has won the Olympic gold medal in hockey, negotiations are getting serious between the Hawks and representatives from the former Soviet Union to get defenseman Igor Kravchuk to Chicago. Senior Vice President Bob Pulford and Wirtz reportedly discussed financial terms with these officials over the weekend. There remains some hope among Hawks management that Kravchuk could be in uniform within a week if all the paperwork can be expedited.
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– Tests showed that defenseman Rod Buskas does have a hairline fracture of an ankle bone. He will be out indefinitely. Coach Mike Keenan could bring up Karl Dykhuis from junior hockey because this puts the team in an emergency-recall situation. But Keenan wants to see how well rookie defenseman Adam Bennett plays before deciding whether he needs to go to Dykhuis. Veteran defenseman Keith Brown is also out with a sprained ankle.