NHL FINDS OLN WILLING TO PAY {SOURCE TOM HOFFARTH THE MEDIA.

Congratulations to the NHL. It has officially gone from mainstream to Field and Stream.

If any more validation was needed to prove the NHL has slipped further off the sports TV radar and moved into the neighborhood of cycling, rodeo and yacht racing, the announcement late Wednesday that the Outdoor Life Network will be the league's new national cable buddy pretty well does that.

OLN and parent company Comcast ramped up in overpaying for a three-year deal with the pro hockey league that couldn't seem to find any solid footing in the U.S. or Canada except with local home-market cable deals.

A guaranteed $135 million deal for the next two seasons, plus an option for $72.5 million for a third year, is reportedly what it will cost OLN to make itself a presumed player. That's really the cost of trying to buy publicity.

ESPN, which a few months ago balked at its option to cough up $60 million for the upcoming season - which wasn't even a given at that point - passed again late Wednesday night after having the option to match the OLN bid. ESPN and the NHL had been partners for the past 21 years.

Why would ESPN not step up to the challenge? As Angelinos have discovered with the absence of the NFL for the past decade, ESPN could live just fine without the NHL, plugging in things like taped poker and college baseball from October to May, and actually see better ratings.

ESPN and ABC Sports chairman George Bodenheimer said ``given the prolonged work stoppage and the league's TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered.''

Even a big company such as Disney wasn't going to get goofy investing in a league perceived to be on thin ice. According to reports, the NHL asked that all its games be on ESPN - and none on ESPN2. That wasn't going to happen. Neither could ESPN accommodate the future distribution of the NHL Network, which Comcast's cable company can do easily on a digital tier within 24 months.

Many thought ESPN, if only for competitive reasons, would quash the OLN offer and any talk of it becoming a viable competitor. Apparently, the party line at ESPN right now - bring it on.

The OLN deal means as many as 78 regular-season games on Monday and Tuesday nights, starting Oct. 5 with the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers. Exclusivity won't be an issue in the first year. The network also will carry the NHL All-Star Game and expand for the playoffs, including both conference finals and the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals (the rest to be on NBC as part of its advertisement-revenue-sharing agreement).

On a smaller scale, there's also a promise of more TV enhancements: behind the scenes access, microphones on players, netcams and in-game interviews - which most local FSN coverage already brings on Kings and Ducks games. Comcast, which also owns the Flyers, has had favorable viewer response from its video-on-demand highlights, HDTV and online video streaming of live games.

The NHL definitely will swim as a big fish in OLN's small pond - OLN is in 64 million homes, about 25 million fewer than ESPN and ESPN2. If OLN goes over the 80 million-homes mark, it will have to kick in more to the NHL.

The NHL, banking on the adage that size doesn't matter, knows OLN can provide all the ego-stroking it needs, which it didn't always get from ESPN. Some industry analysts compare what OLN can do for the NHL to what TNT has done for the NBA.

``We're delighted at the presence, prominence and importance we'll have at OLN to connect with our fans in ways that we've never been able to do before,'' NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Thursday.

OLN president Gavin Harvey said the NHL is ``at the top of our priority list. ... it's our cornerstone.''

Jeff Shell, the former president of the Fox cable networks, was instrumental in putting the deal together as Comcast's president of programming, a position he assumed in May.

OLN, often referred to as the Only Lance Network, made its mark the past couple of years with live coverage of Lance Armstrong's victories in the Tour de France. It recently bought the rights to the America's Cup and the Boston Marathon (which used to be on ESPN), pro bullriding and the syndicated reruns of the ``Survivor'' reality show. OLN also bought the Gravity Games in 2004, a rival action-sports event to ESPN's X Games.

The NHL's two-year, over-the-air deal with NBC starts this season with seven regular-season games, six playoff games and Stanley Cup finals Games 3-7. The NHL Center Ice package, a pay service on DirecTV and other cable and dish networks with access to all local cable coverage of teams, will operate as usual.

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WHAT SMOKES

--Just hours after signing off from last Saturday's ``MLB on Fox'' studio show, Jeanne Zelasko delivered a daughter, Isabela Grace, Sunday at 2:20 a.m. at a Valencia hospital. Dad Curt Sandoval, the KABC-Channel 7 sportscaster, reports that although Isabela came two weeks early, all is well, and Zelasko left the hospital Thursday. Said Zelasko about the latest roster addition: ``She knows the pennant races are heating up and didn't want to miss any action down the stretch - like mother, like daughter.'' Zelasko likely will return to the MLB pregame show later next month; meanwhile, FSN West's Patrick O'Neal will fill in.

--After NBC went the first round last spring with the Mark Brunett 15-episode boxing reality show, ``The Contender,'' the second season will move to primetime on ESPN starting in April 2006. Burnett's people announced Thursday during a media gathering at Staples Center that Sylvester Stallone and Jeffrey Katzenberg will return as executive producers, and Sugar Ray Leonard will have a role again. Casting for the series, which pits 16 aspiring pro boxers baring their souls to the cameras as they eliminate each other in a tournament, already is in progress.

WHAT CHOKES

--Reviews of the new ``Madden NFL `06'' video game released recently by EA Sports haven't been very flattering by the techogeek experts. But how much more can be done to improve the product? One review on AOL Games notes that ``even the Tony Bruno radio dialogue that plays through much of the franchise mode seems largely lifted from 2005, and the parts that are clearly new don't come across any differently or any more interesting than the old stuff.'' Guilty, says Bruno. More than a year ago, when he was hired to add commentary for the `05 game, Bruno said he spent 37 hours at a Santa Monica studio recording sound bites. For the `06 game, he did just five hours to freshen things up and add all the new names. ``Even John Madden and Al Michaels don't do a lot of new stuff,'' said Bruno. ``The technical stuff is what's amazing. But on some Web sites, I saw where one guy said I was the best part of the game. What does that tell you? It depends on what flavor you like.'' Meanwhile, Bruno's 6-to-10 a.m. show on 1540-AM, which had been the last locally focused morning sports-talk show in this market, started a syndication launch on the Sporting News Radio Network this week. From now to Oct. 1, it will be included in Boston, Indianapolis, St. Louis, San Antonio, Providence (R.I.), Fresno and Albuquerque.

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BY TOM HOFFARTH