Scott Moore, CBC’s relatively new head of CBC sports, ate a bit of Saskatchewan humble pie yesterday, after after football fans outside Saskatchewan were not shown the conclusion of Saturday’s Roughriders-Edmonton Eskimos game.
Looks like a comedy of errors had it in for the broadcast.
First, it was delayed nearly an hour after a lightning strike knocked out power and phone lines to Mosaic Stadium and the CBC’s broadcast truck. Edmonton was ahead 32-27 when the lights went out.
That’s when goof #2 happened: Someone in the CBC programming department decided to switched to a Nick Nolte [ed: of all actors] movie. When the power finally came back on, only viewers in Saskatchewan got to see the final 13 minutes when the Riders scored 12 points.
And finally, Moore said he turned his cell phone off that night (and, having recently moved, nobody at CBC had his landline number) so technicians couldn’t reach him to make a decision on broadcasting.
CBC will rebroadcast the final quarter of the game across Canada early Monday morning — starting at 12:30 a.m. local time.
(Some newspaper commentators said the incident was reminiscent of 1968′s so-called Heidi Bowl. U.S. football fans were outraged that year when they missed the last 65 seconds of a New York Jets-Oakland Raiders NFL game after NBC switched to a made-for-TV Heidi movie.)