10:04 am: Very interesting details from Newsday's Art Staple regarding this morning's practice for tonight's game: Lines as he sees them are:
Bailey-Nielsen-Okposo, Lee-Nelson-Strome, Gallant-Regin Boulton, Quine-Miller-Diamond. On Defense the pairings are: Dalhuisen-Martinek, Pedan-Mayfield, Reinhart-Pulock with Nabokov and Poulin for goal. Nabokov will actually be the back-up.
Clutterbuck's injury is a gash to his right thigh. Ouch.
7:43 am: Well, it's something. Isles TV will begin a webstream of tonight's game from Newark on Islanders TV. So tonight we'll also get to see our first glimpse of future Hall of Famer Marty Brodeur for the 2013-'14 season. Yesterday on NHL Radio they said he would be the starter.
11 pm: Once again, Islanders fans are wondering if they will be able to see the pre-season NHL games that are in their own area. We go through this every single year.
Tomorrow night, the NJ Devils will play the Islanders in NJ. The Devils are carried on MSG owned by the Dolans who also own -- just about everything on Long Island. The Rock is set up for MSG cameras, but it is highly doubtful that MSG will air tomorrow's game even though two NHL teams who have contracts with MSG television will be playing in their own area.
Meanwhile -- the NY Rangers have been broadcast on two of MSG's channels at the same time this week. But the truth of the matter is -- they don't have to.
Now, I could be wrong, but a few years ago when I started asking questions about "Why " and "How Come?" was answered with the truth of the TV contracts. From what I remember, I was told that the contract only requires that they broadcast the REGULAR season games, not preseason.
Let's be honest, TV is expensive. Even if you don't create an entire pre-production show and post game, just paying for those who would be broadcasting is expensive. It's also Union, so you have those rules too.
And there are no sponsors to foot the bill. So, of course, MSG can run a Ranger pre-season game. They own it all and have to pay to put something on the air anyway. But is MSG wasting an opportunity?
Surely they knew well in advance the pre-season schedule. Couldn't someone have gone out and sold the advertising that would have been needed to fund the production? Even it they didn't pay Howie Rose and Butch Goring for the night, certainly an in-arena announcer who is already on TV broadcasts an option.
Certainly the brand new Barclays Center would have put up the cash for advertising! Oh... wait...that's right.
So, maybe we'll have a radio feed, maybe a web feed, maybe two tin cans and a really, really long string. We've been doing this for years. but at least now -- We'll have Twitter.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
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