Colorado Avalanche to Have 6 Nationally Televised Games

Colorado Avalanche fans will have to bear six games being nationally televised on NBCSN. The other 76 games will be on our Altitude TV.

The Colorado Avalanche are moving up in the world. Last season, they only had one game nationally televised. This season, they will have six.

Five of those games will be the traditional Wednesday Night Rivalry, though they’ll be playing none of their rivals:

• October 24: Tampa Bay at Colorado
• November 7: Nashville at Colorado
• November 28: Pittsburgh at Colorado
• January 2: San Jose at Colorado
• March 27: Vegas at Colorado

I guess you could make a case that, after last season’s playoffs, the Predators are a rival. In any case, NBC Sports isn’t calling those games Wednesday Night Rivalry.

Also, I’m now sure why all five of those games are in Colorado.

The sixth nationally televised game occurs on a Sunday, and the Avalanche are the visitors:

• March 24: Colorado at Chicago

Now, as I noted, last year the Colorado Avalanche had only one nationally televised game on NBC Sports. That small amount made since because the Avs were coming off the Lost Season of 48 points. No one cared too much about what they were doing, and most people assumed they’d be deep in a rebuild.

The increase this season is likely due to the fact that the Avalanche had an historic bounce-back season, based largely on Nathan MacKinnon’s performance. Indeed, I fully expect all these nationally televised games to be the Nathan MacKinnon Show.

Here’s the quandary. Generally speaking, here in Avs Nation, we don’t like nationally televised games too much. The announcers are annoying because they don’t know much about our players. They even mis-pronounce their names sometimes. They focus on the most generic narrative and leave the subtle nuances out.

That said, hopefully these nationally televised games will bring MacKinnon’s greatness even more to the forefront. I’m advocating we start chanting “MVP, MVP” starting on opening night when every time he scores. Let’s get that nugget planted in sports writers’ heads early on.

Of course, you don’t have to listen to the NBC Sports commentators such as Mike Emrick, Pierre McGuire and Mike Milbury — and in case of the latter, I highly recommend against it. Instead, you can listen to home boy Conor McGahey call the plays on Altitude Radio. McGahey, of course, is taking over for Marc Moser, who was promoted to TV play-by-play on Altitude.

Some other noteworthy facts about nationally televised games is that the Dallas Stars get only one game. The Nashville Predators get 12 and the (hated) Minnesota Wild get 11.

Imagine, all those times Emrick, McGuire and Milbury are going to say “Parise” all funky. I almost feel for the team.

Well, at least we don’t have to hear them struggle with “Varlamov” and Soderberg” until October 24 when the Colorado Avalanche host the Tampa Bay Lightning.