With Friends Like These…

Briefly stopped by the opening of ESPN’s snazzy new Los Angeles digs last week, and stuck around just long enough to hear a prominent National Hockey League team executive indirectly trash league television partner Versus, which picked up a hockey package as its main asset when ESPN balked a few years back.

On stage at the opening of the new complex, Anschutz Entertainment Group (owners of the Los Angeles Kings) CEO Tim Leiweke turned to ESPN chief George Bodenheimer and said, “We made a huge mistake with hockey - we need to get back on ESPN with the NHL.” While many people agree, I wonder how that comment went over back at Comcast, which has shelled out quite a few scheckels to the NHL?