IN BRIEF : NHL All-Star Games to Be on NBC

NBC announced today that it will televise the 1990 and 1991 NHL All-Star games, the first time the league will be on network television in nearly a decade.

The games on Sunday, Jan. 20, 1990, and Jan. 21, 1991, will be accompanied by a televised “Legends” game on SportsChannel America cable on the preceding Saturdays that will also include as-yet-to-be-determined other competition.

Joel Nixon, the NHL’s vice president for broadcasting, said it was modeled after the NBA’s All-Star weekend, which includes a Sunday game on CBS and the other competitions on TBS cable Saturday. Nixon said he believed this would be the first time the NHL all-star game would be on network television.

CBS carried the last NHL game on network television on May 24, 1980, when the New York Islanders beat the Philadelphia Flyers in the sixth game of the Stanley Cup finals to win the first of their four NHL titles. NBC last televised NHL games in 1975.