Fox Scores With Nhl Production

Fox Sports approached hockey with the same philosophy a lot of players do - that there were no rules. For TV, it worked.

While ratings were only 2.7 for the NHL’s first regular season on Fox, broadcasts were an artistic success. Modern graphics, enhanced audio and expensive computer-generated special effects gave hockey a look for the ‘90s and beyond.

Even the moronic Foxbots, animated androids that emerged after each goal, served their purpose. They sucked in a generation of rug rats and spit them out as potential hockey fans.

When was the last time a hockey goal was greeted with such enthusiasm by a bear-totin’ 6-year-old wearing an Orlando Magic cap?

Using James Brown, a hockey neophyte, as the anchor of the NHL pregame show was a borderline stroke of genius on the part of Fox Sports president David Hill and executive producer Ed Goren.

“It’s not a sport that I grew up with,” Brown said, “but the one thing that I’ve done in my career is a lot of nontraditional sports. … I told David Hill, ‘If you want me, I’m not exactly steeped in hockey lore, but there is nothing I can’t learn.”’

With former New York Rangers defenseman Dave Maloney, a Wall Street stock broker, as studio analyst, the last thing Fox needed was another hockey expert. What it needed was an expert host, and that’s what it got in Brown.

Brown brings everything to a studio show that Brent Musburger once did, only he leaves the big head home. Brown also gives hockey a mainstream look, something a hockey man couldn’t have done.

“Hockey wasn’t like football,” Goren said. “We went into hockey, and there were no rules. Everything that had preceded us on network television had failed. We had a blank canvas and we said, ‘Let’s see what we come up with.’

“Some of the traditionalists balked at first, but … as time goes along, the traditionalists come around.”

Goren said from a promotional standpoint, the NHL’s biggest problem is it has no national team.

“There isn’t even a team to root against, like the Yankees,” said Goren. “The teams that have personality are hopefully there.

“The last 10 weeks, hockey has been exposed to more people than ever before. Without a lockout, we’ve got a chance to market it a little bit better next year, and if we can bring ratings up 10-15 percent, that’s the key.”

Out takes

ESPN will start its 16th season of college football on Thursday, Aug. 31, with defending national champion Nebraska at Oklahoma State.

ESPN’s two college football studio shows, the morning’s “College GameDay” and the afternoon and evening’s “College Football Scoreboard,” will return to air each Saturday beginning Sept. 2.

ABC Online, available through America Online, will dedicate an area of its dial-up computer service to major league baseball, the network announced.

The area will include complete team information, statistics and box scores, scores updates from SportsTicker, and an interactive video game designed for use during live telecasts.

For the first time, baseball fans also will be able to vote for the All-Star team through the on-line service… They should beat Chicago in six.”

The word isn’t even in Webster’s 10th edition of the collegiate dictionary, for crying out loud. And some 14-year-old from Wynne, Ark., named Justin Tyler Carroll spelled it correctly on ESPN2 to win the 1995 National Spelling Bee.

It was, and let me make sure I spell this right: xanthosis. Just like it sounds. It’s a yellow discoloration of the skin, like you get from eating Cheetohs.

The spelling bee doesn’t sound like much of a television event, but ESPN2 televised the tournament live Thursday, used it as a filler on Friday and showed it again Sunday. It’s headed for ESPN today.