The full Leafs schedule is now up with the television stations that will be carrying the team's march to a title.
Now, you're probably thinking to yourself "How can God's Team have 20 games without television coverage?!". Well, fear not. Just dish out the cash and you can get the other TWENTY games on LeafsTV. That is up from the 12 games that MLSE's flagship channel showed last year.
Tom Anselmi, MLSE's COO and executive vice-president, notes that the channel is good value for fans:
"Produced by us with unique access to Leafs players, coaches and management, no other source can deliver what we can to Leafs fans across Ontario. We spend more than any club in the NHL in producing the best broadcasts available in High Definition, taking viewers inside the dressing room and on to the ice to get up close to their favourite team."
Luckily the games will be shown on HD so he didn't have to mention the blurriness that plagued the last two seasons' worth of games. He also skips the best selling point: all the blurry black and white games from the 60s you can handle!
It will be interesting to see how MLSE balances their desire to increase LeafsTV registrations (and of course their cost) with maintaining a strong presence on TSN, HNiC, and Sportsnet. Right now they are at 7 National broadcasts on TSN and 28 on HNiC. Those Saturday nights will never be lost and the team has tested out other methods of delivery since LeafsTV is only available in Ontario east of Belleville.
Last year they tested a platform for streaming the games live that was pretty good. It featured different camera angles that you could select as well as a chat function. At the end of the game MLSE conducted a survey to gauge interest so it would be interesting to see what the results are.
The team will also continue their partnership with Cineplex to show games on the big screen. The details are still being worked out and I'll try to track them down as soon as possible.
If only the team's hockey braintrust was as good as those charged with making the Teacher's Pension Plan obscene returns. The Leafs would be a dynasty.