A sequence early in last night's coverage of the Stanley Cup final's sixth game illustrated an important difference between the telecasts of the CBC and NBC.

The CBC's Don Cherry wondered, correctly, how much "gas in the tank" Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Marc-André Fleury had left after a hectic fifth game.

A few seconds later, NBC's Pierre McGuire asked a question on the same subject to Penguins forward Ryan Malone, who said the team had plenty left and was ready to go.

Cherry wondered; McGuire produced an answer.

Both networks did a fine job of covering the Cup final, but NBC worked harder at it, got closer to the action and, correctly, focused on the star players.

McGuire's work between the benches gave NBC a huge advantage over the CBC. He was able to interview coaches and players between stoppages in play and reported on news from the benches.

In the third overtime period of the fifth game, he reported that Petr Sykora was predicting that he would score the winning goal. A few seconds later, he did.

The CBC's Hockey Night in Canada doesn't employ an ice-level reporter-analyst and, therefore, is unable to bring the viewers as close to the action as NBC does.

In terms of priorities, NBC applies the traditional TV approach to promoting the game's stars with profiles, information and commentary.

The focus at Hockey Night is based largely on the likes and dislikes of the show's two most powerful people, Cherry and host Ron MacLean.

MacLean and Cherry both favour tough Canadians and have grudging praise for skilled players or young stars, with the odd exception. In this series, that pretty much eliminated the key players on each team.

As an alternative, MacLean and Cherry chose 42-year-old Pens veteran Gary Roberts to be their marquee guy.

After the third game, Cherry declared that Roberts, with one assist and less than nine minutes of ice time, had been the best player, despite Pittsburgh's 20-year-old captain, Sidney Crosby, logging 20 minutes and scoring two goals in his team's 3-2 win.

In the fourth game, the Hockey Night emphasis on Roberts, who played well in a limited role, continued. There were lingering close-ups and more praise.

In the fifth game, Hockey Night aired a close-up of Roberts looking up at the time clock. Cherry said checking the time remaining in the game is the sign of a real veteran player.

Last night, Cherry continued to talk up Roberts. He aired a clip of his yelling to Sykora on the bench in the fifth game, just before his winning goal, the suggestion being that Roberts helped motivate Sykora to score. Hockey Night also dug up a clip from a third-game news conference in which Pens forward Maxime Talbot, responding to a question about Roberts, praised him.

To his critics Cherry said: "I know what's going on. You don't."

One thing is indisputable: Hockey Night spent a great deal of time and effort promoting Roberts. The guess, here, is that NBC's focus on the real stars of the series was time better spent.

[-rule-]

Tiger called out

Don't knock our game, meat head.

That was the message to Tiger Woods after his dismissive cracks about hockey.

On TSN, Mike Milbury called him a wuss, and Bob McKenzie said he didn't understand the game.

During a news conference on Monday promoting the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills near Detroit, the first question was about the fifth game of the Stanley Cup final.

"Detroit or Pittsburgh tonight?" asked Julius Mason, the PGA of America's senior director of communications and media relations.

Woods laughed and said: "That's pretty good. I don't really care. Let's talk about the Dodgers. … I don't think anybody really watches hockey any more."

The next night, Milbury and his TSN colleagues dropped their gloves.

Milbury: "You know what? I'm gonna change the name now. It's gonna be Tiger Wuss. Here's a guy that took about three months to get over a simple arthroscopic surgery. You look at [Pens forward] Ryan Malone. His face exploded with a slap shot last night — he's back out in 10 minutes!

"Keep your yap shut, Tiger, or I'll send a couple of wingers down there — [Pens forward] Gary Roberts — to tidy you up a little bit, meat head."

Pierre McGuire: "I'll just say this: Tiger Woods doesn't usually have a bogey, but this was a triple bogey."

McKenzie: "Unfortunately, [Woods] epitomizes what a lot of Americans feel about hockey: They don't give it a chance, they don't get it, they're not wired correctly — and to those Americans that do get it, Mike Milbury, thank you very much."

James Duthie: "I'll say this to Tiger: Nobody watches golf any more either! Except when you're playing, then everybody watches it."