Who’s to blame for the Rangers and Capitals being forced to wait an extra day to conclude their playoff series? Why, none other than Bette Midler, of course.
Midler is scheduled to perform at Tampa’s Amalie Arena on Monday night, bumping Game 6 of the Lightning-Canadiens series to Tuesday night. That forced to NHL to move the Rangers’ potential Game 7 back to Wednesday.
Had the game not been moved, with no weeknight playoff game starting before 7 p.m., the Rangers or Lightning would have been forced to start their game at 9:30 p.m. local time if NBC wanted to maximize viewership by avoiding simultaneous games.