**I figured before the games yesterday that the hottest topic this morning would be reffing, but no: looks like it's the CBC. There was a host of technical glitches, some of which I caught myself, but their biggest sin was certainly buggering up their regional feeds.

I had to catch the first 3 minutes of the Flames/Ducks game on the radio, wondering why CBC Calgary hadn't switched over from the Oiler game yet; apparently when the CBC A/V Squad finally did get the Flames game going, they switched the whole damn country over, including Edmonton.

A sincere suggestion for Oiler fans: even without Centre Ice, you may be able to get the Detroit broadcast of the game. Most satellite and digital cable packages carry the Fox affiliate out of Detroit, which is carrying the games. It's Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond with the call; they're pretty good, and this also solves the Mark Lee problem described hilariously (in part) here:

Usually it takes a couple rounds for an intelligent colour man like John Garrett to lose his temper at a bungling booth colleague, but Garrett flipped out briefly in the second period when Lee described a negligible Detroit shot from a bad angle as "dangerous." [...] The Prime Minister is said to be a hockey fanatic, so I'd like to personally appeal to him to order the Corporation to re-hire Chris Cuthbert and send Lee out to cover Taiwanese jai-alai. (If they don't play jai-alai in Taiwan, so much the better.)

(Read the whole thing for the Fake-but-Accurate transcript of Lee's play-by-play.) The Prime Minister is known to be a Calgarian, so I'd like to personally appeal to him to order the CBC to send Garrett to the Ottawa series, and put Millen with Lee -- together at last!

**I was pretty happy with the officiating in the Flames/Ducks game. Until OT at least, it resembled what I've seen most of the year (except for the odd game where it seemed like any kind of contact was a penalty).

I'll be interested to see if Dan O'Halloran and Mike Hasenfratz get into any more games, though, and how soon. Scott Niedermayer took out Langkow in OT with a move that could pretty easily have been called a penalty in previous years, but was a black letter obstruction interference call now. DL moved the puck around the boards, then took off in pursuit; a couple of seconds later, Nied hits him, then gets his stick in DL's belly and holds him onto the boards, then upends Langkow with the stick.

If that stuff is not going to be called, again, I'm happy (at the moment, I was actually happy that there was no call, as I'd rather have the "credit" in the bank against a cheap touch foul than I would the PP opportunity).

**Andy Murray = pretty good. Once the Corpse gets their Level 1 technical problems worked out, maybe they could get him a telestrator pen. We've been hearing for years that Murray is a great preparer and a great Xs & Os guy -- let's learn something then, shall we?

**Boy, Nashville is dead already: San Jose is so hot, and how are you supposed to stop Thornton and Cheechoo? OOPS, how'd that old take (circa Thursday) from every single NHL expert get in there?

**My favourite item in the game stories was that last night was the first time the Flames opened the playoffs with a win since 1988. Man, would I ever love stress-free advancement into the 2nd round.

More later, maybe.