It's Valentine's Day, and my heart is broken. Don't get me wrong -- life is good, work is good, and Robin still laughs at my jokes and looks the other way when I have my pants let out ... again. So what, you ask, hast cleft my heart in twain? My TV... specifically, the recent news that Empire Sports Network is not long for this digital world.
Some may find it weird that my Valentine's Day contribution is an ode to lost love in the form of a regional cable sports network, but only those who have never experienced the dizzying euphoria of an expatriate Buffalo sports addict with a direct lifeline to the source.
To paraphrase Gale Sayers' autobiography: "Robin Is First, Buffalo Sports Are Second, and I Am Third."
How many times in these very pages have Robin and I referenced the role that "Hockey Hotline" played in our lives? "Hotline" was the ongoing soundtrack to our triumphs, our failures, our fights and our fun. As the toxic fallout of the Rigas clan's fiscal madness claims another victim, I am left to shake my enormous ginger head and ask: Why?
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I got my first satellite dish in 1995. Ensconced in a Beverly Hills rental at the time, I had to bribe the installer to mount the dish on the roof and snake the wire down three stories and into our apartment through an illegal hole drilled through a wall filled with stucco, dead rodents and probably asbestos. That's how desperate I was to order the NFL Sunday Ticket package and never miss another Bills game. From Levy to Mularkey, it remains heaven. I have never regretted the decision, but since Bills football is played on Sundays, I had six other days to explore the vast expanse of 1,000 digital channels -- everything from politics to pasta to porn.
Then I landed on the real gem of the collection: Channel 626, devoted entirely to Buffalo sports. I probably resembled Jerry Crafts the first time someone asked if he wanted to "supersize it." Sabres games, "Fan TV," "The Thurman Thomas Show," Paul Maguire hosting cable's longest-running sports talk show, even Bills preseason scrimmages? Pass the smelling salts!
Hello 626! The fact that 62 was the number on my high school football jersey only added that magic confluence of kismet and cosmic significance. I was home, baby, no matter what kind of day Hollywood dealt me. I didn't get the job/I got the job. The show was canceled/the show got a two-year pickup. Even if the rewrite got me home at 4 a.m., Empire always gave me a psychic trip back to the healing waters of home. Perspective was as close as the Buffalo dialect washing over me during "Hotline's" caller segments. Snubs and disappointments evaporated as I kicked back to the familiar sound of fans from Cheektowaga, Tonawanda, Lackawanna and even the Village of Sloan uttering words that mutated into the dialect equivalent of a tour of Western New York: "Baa-flo," "Saburrsss," "Roby" or, my personal favorite, "Ther's a plaiy-aff aytmuspheeere at d'Rayylfff!"
In it's heyday, Empire was a feast of original programming. Long before Wilbon and Kornheiser hit it big with PTI, I had Art Wander and Larry Felser talking Queen City sports whilst sipping coffee on an inexplicable 1950s diner set. I had "The Thurman Thomas Show," with those Madonna-style, wrap-around headsets that seemed to get passed down to subsequent Empire shows over the years. And the ads! None of this over-produced, precious national brand-name crap -- no, it was locally produced spots for local businesses that turned my TV into the transporter from Star Trek, destination: Buffalo. With one easy yank on the remote, I could imagine I was back home in a muscle car eating a Zweigle's in an M. Wile suit while enjoying "The friendliest pump on the reservation."
Empire was home to great personalities. I admired Bob Koshinski for his work on camera and off. Having enjoyed their work on the air, I later had the pleasure of getting to know Josh Mora, Bob Trimble, Howard Simon and Brian Blessing -- great guys, consummate pros.
And don't get me started on Empire's Sabres telecasts! One trip though the other NHL broadcasts is all the proof any fan needs that Rick "top shelf where Momma hides the cookies" Jeanneret is the philosopher's stone of hockey play-by-play. It's no wonder when Los Angelinos wax rhapsodic about Vin Scully and Chick Hearn, my thought balloon has always read "Poor things, they never got to grow up listening to Jeanneret describing a real man's game." And, win or lose, Empire always made it worth my while, thanks to the vicarious carnage that was "The Carubba Collision."
While Empire's late-night infomercials may have screamed, "but wait, there's more!" no bonus Ginsu knives could hold a candle to the Sabres broadcast's version of extra goodies: "Hockey Hotline."
My late, great Hungarian father used to listen to my mother critique the dinner she'd just cooked us, take a beat, then utter in his deep Magyar accent, "Nancy ... must we have these endless post-mortems?"
Well, the answer is yes. The only thing better than watching the game was rehashing it for 90 minutes, thanks to Sabres fans' answer to the Vegas buffet. "Hotline" was the forum to end all post-mortem forums, and there will always be a special place in my heart for Mike Robitaille. When I was a schoolboy defenseman with a quarter-share of a season ticket in the Aud's orange section, I saw him administer incomprehensibly perfect hip checks. As a man, I delighted in his irascible studio breakdowns of every game. Having spent the last 14 years on ESPN, all I can say to his detractors is this: The TV business is about opinions, and Mike gets it. The only way to excel as an analyst is to bring them, every game night, no holds barred. Add the delicious tension of Roby's interaction with contrarian studio partner Blessing, and you had the manliest incarnation of an old married couple we'll ever see. Put them in any network booth, and watch the ratings climb.
Assuming the NHL ever plays another game, I could say that the news that Sabres games will be moving to the Madison Square Garden Network is a metaphor for a New York State imbalance that tilts everything so it inevitably rolls from west to east, be it attention, tax dollars or NHL broadcasting rights.
I could say that since the day Robin and I moved my mom west, Empire was my daily connection to my hometown.
I could say that the end of a brave outfit just ... sucks.
I'll just close with this: Having worked in TV for a long time in a myriad of forms, I have a special appreciation for the effort and dedication it takes to broadcast, day in, day out. Robin and I met in New York at the dawn of Comedy Central. Skeleton staffs worked day and night to keep the machine pumping. One show would wrap, the cameras would swivel 10 feet to the left, and the next show would begin, and somehow we made TV, all day, every day. It was the best time of our creative lives, and I tasted this same passion when I watched Empire. They say you can never go home again, but thanks to Empire, I did. To everyone involved, long may you ride.
