Too little, too late for Toronto Broadcasting Corp. (Montreal Gazette)

From The Montreal Gazette:

BILL BROWNSTEIN, The Gazette
April 9, 2008

"Wonders never cease. I see that the CBC-TV hockey brass will be leaving their Toronto offices in the centre of the universe to do English-language broadcasts of every Habs game against the Bruins, in Montreal and Boston, during the opening round of the playoffs. And they will continue to cover the Canadiens as far as they go in their hunt for the Stanley Cup. Isn't that special?.."

"..... Fact is....that many Montrealers - anglos, allos and francos - have long since given up on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. Where were they during those long, lonely winter stretches? Not here. About the only times they deigned to broadcast the Canadiens in recent years came when they played the cursed Leafs...."

"....In short, they gave us up for dead in these parts. Frankly, we don't need the Toronto Broadcasting Corporation to feed our hockey frenzy any longer....."

"....In the old days, when Stanley Cup parades were de rigueur annually in Montreal, we were treated to the "cannonading" linguistic stylings of play-by-play man Danny Gallivan, with astute colour commentary by Dick Irvin. Almost all Habs home games on a Saturday night were broadcast in English on the CBC back then - not just the playoffs...".

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html?id=d3c58957-7667-41ca-99e2-84c26ea527e8&k=96254


CBC Sports responds (and bloggers respond to CBC Sports):
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/moore/2008/04/we_love_montreal_we_really_do.html


Canadiens and non-Toronto fans answer the CBC-HNIC corporate statement:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/sports/story.html?id=4f91981e-8591-4628-b69f-c5310ca76443