The Washington Capitals and Toronto Maple Leafs played an outdoor Stadium Series game on Saturday night in Annapolis, MD, and the game was televised nationally on NBC.
Midway through the third period, there was a power outage at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, and the game was delayed for about 15 minutes.
Well, the delay caused the game time to go past the 11 PM ET mark with just over four minutes remaining in the third period. And NBC cut away from the game for other programming, with that being the local news for most affiliates with SNL to follow. (I got In Depth with Graham Bensinger in the San Diego area instead of the news.)
NBC warned right before cutting away that they were putting the remainder of the game on NBCSN.
Now, it should be noted that it was a 5-2 game with just over four minutes left, so the odds of a Maples Leafs comeback were tiny. Still, the decision to cut away from the outdoor game for other programming did not go over well with NHL fans, with some of the complaints saying how NBC would never do that with an NFL game.
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/970147844056371200
https://twitter.com/tracyramone/status/970148351047077889
https://twitter.com/stevegiglio/status/970150192572960768
[NBC]