Local Blackout In Effect

Live in the Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph Rogers Local 20 viewing region and want to see the Golden Hawks and Gryphons play their home games this year?

Well then, you'd better get your butts down to Knigth-Newbrough Field and Alumni Stadium, respectively.

Not a single home game in either city will be broadcast on Rogers this year (Paging Bill Wirtz. Bill Wirtz to the courtesy phone!). Cuts and personnel shortages have left the local Rogers affiliate without enough producers to air the games.

However, certain play-by-play men, sideline hosts and colour commentators have been put "on call" just in case air time and personnel surface. Don't count on it, though.

In the meantime, the only way to watch the locals play is to do so in person, not that the Hawks have given their faithful many reasons to show up (46-1 loss to the Mustangs; blown 22-point lead against McMaster) — and oh yeah, they play Toronto in their home opener Saturday.

If you really want to subject yourself to a Laurier-Toronto tilt in the comfort of your own office chair, there's a HawkCast at http://www.laurierathletics.com/live/

I'm not sure how this affects the OUA — if at all.

But I'm a firm believer that media coverage — print, internet, TV and radio — validates a subject, especially a sport or sports in general. Print may be for the record but TV is for the masses.

Kids and parents alike love to see themselves and their kids on television.

Any exposure, even at the hyper local level, is good exposure for a league that's seemingly always fighting an uphill battle out of the bush.

A TV camera adds some intensity to the play (just ask Justin Dunk) and interest in the sport. Video and play calls are split and spliced together on highlight packages and YouTube alike (just ask Courteny Stephen — I mean really, isn't that better footage than that obtained from a hand held atop a SkyJack?)