A Weird Thing About Islanders Broadcasts

Since this is Presidents Day -- Happy Presidents Day -- there are sports games on in the afternoon.  The NBA is still on All-Star Break, but the NHL have three matinees, and in the first, the Wild just beat the Islanders in Brooklyn in a game that started noon Central Daylight Time today.

But something I have noticed.  I listened to the Islanders feed on Sirius XM just to hear the opposing point-of-view.  I have listened to their broadcasts a couple times before.  I have listened to other feeds from other, non-Minnesota teams, in all leagues, and I believe I am hearing either the syndicated feed (one where a third company simulcasts to all the radio stations that want to carry that team's broadcasts) or the feed of the flagship station, i.e. the station that is closest to the team's presupposed location and/or the biggest radio station in the affiliate network which has an outsized influence on the logistics of the broadcast and/or the personnel.

The Islanders seem to be different.  The announcers have not ever said "... on the Islanders Radio Network," so what I'm hearing isn't a team network feed.  And I don't hear call letters for any big New York-area radio station I'm familiar with, and I think I'm decent when it comes to recognizes New York station.  Instead, I hear, and get this, "Radio Hofstra."  You mean Hofstra, the university?  Is the flagship radio station for the New York Islanders, a full-fledged National Hockey League a ... college radio station?

I mean, it's cool, I guess.  But I think it's unheard-of.  The main, and weirdest, difference I notice is that there are no straightforward commercials during breaks.  Instead, every 30 seconds or so I hear, "This game is brought to you by (this company)," and then there is an announcement that "You're listening to the game on Radio Hofstra, the Radio Station Of The Year," and then there's a musical interlude that plays until a bumper from an Isles player bringing us back to the game.  Weird.

Well, I will say that last year, the University of Minnesota women's basketball team finally got their games aired on the radio, but on the locally-run jazz station.  They are member-supported, so they never run spots.  (This year they moved to a commercial station.)  So, like with the Islanders on Radio Hofstra, some announcer said, "You're listening to University of Minnesota women's basketball on Jazz 88 FM," followed by a bit of jazz music to fill the dead air, and then that fades out as we went back to the game.

This feels mom-and-pop.  Not in a bad way, like it's poorly run.  But in a good way, like the flagship station didn't have to pay millions of dollars for the rights to air this professional franchise.  In turn, a low-watt FM station can say it's the station broadcasting a NHL franchise's games on the radio.  It feels accessible, modest, humble -- all good things, and thus all anachronistic in this day and age of exploding prices for all things sports.