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Hockey Day In America and Heritage Classic combine for nine hours of coverage across NBC Sports and Versus

HockeyDayInAmerica

With the combined forces of NBC Sports and Versus, this Sunday is shaping up to be one of the biggest hockey days in recent television memory. With NBC’s Hockey Day In America joining forces with Versus’ coverage of the 2011 Heritage Classic in Calgary the two networks are set to bring hockey to the people for up to nine hours worth of coverage.

Everything begins at noon Eastern on NBC starting at Millennium Park in Chicago where NBC’s Ed Olczyk will be there skating outdoors with the Stanley Cup. NBC Sports and Versus executive producer says, “Not a bad spectacle to start the day.”

Throughout the day stories depicting hockey life and the love its shown throughout America will be highlighted during NBC’s coverage. Features include showing the efforts of Neal Henderson of Fort Dupont Ice Hockey program designed to help inner city youth in Washington, D.C. that he began in 1978, to the annual U.S. Pond Hockey Championships that happen in Minnesota, to celebrity hockey in Los Angeles. Young and old, common folks to superstars, everyone plays hockey.

NBC’s Doc Emrick puts it succinctly in describing Hockey Day In America and what the coverage of it means to do.

“It is a celebration of hockey…We try our best to make sure that people understand that we are passionate about the sport.”

The focus of the doubleheader coverage of the day will be regional coverage from one of three games starting at 12:35 p.m. ET with Washington at Buffalo where Jeff Jackson will handle play-by-play duties with Ray Ferraro doing analysis between the benches. Philadelphia at the New York Rangers starts at 12:40 p.m. with Ken Daniels and Joe Micheletti handling the call while Detroit at Minnesota begins at 12:45 p.m. ET with Pat Foley and Darren Pang doing the broadcast.

From there, coverage shifts to national action with the Penguins taking on the Blackhawks at 3:30 p.m. ET in Chicago from United Center. Doc Emrick, Ed Olczyk, and Pierre McGuire will take care of the broadcast with Mike Milbury and Liam McHugh back in the studio for analysis. The Blackhawks are the defending Stanley Cup champions while the Penguins won it two years ago.

2011heritageclassic

Upon the conclusion of the game from Chicago, action then shifts from NBC to Versus for coverage of the 2011 Heritage Classic. Bill Patrick, Keith Jones, and Jeremy Roenick will be holding down the studio desk from McMahon Stadium in Calgary for the game. During the game, Dave Strader will take care of play-by-play while Andy Brickley and Brian Engblom will be doing analysis.

As for how it all works together spanning two networks and five different locations in all, Flood is excited for the fun it will provide.

“It all builds to the Pittsburgh-Chicago game which has the cool advantage of leading into the Calgary game. And for the first time, we can take advantage of the NBCU synergies with this new company and tell the audience that there is a big outdoor hockey game north of the border that takes place as soon as Pittsburgh-Chicago ends. So again, we’ve got this hockey crazed audience celebrating the game for the day and ending up in Calgary for the hockey under the lights in the open air. And nothing could be more fun than that.”

This kind of coverage is unprecedented in America making this year’s Hockey Day In America all that much more impressive. Pulling all of this great action together over one day is stunning and should make Sunday that much more fun for everyone.