Flyers

Winter Classic Loose Ends: Fake Jerseys Seized, An Interview with HBO Producer Dave Harmon

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jan 4th, 2012 · 10:29 AM EST

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Where China goes to die

You didn’t think the game would be played and then we’d be done with the Winter Classic, did you? 

Truth is, it’s been the only meaningful Philly sports game played this year (…), so it’s tail will continue to grow… sort of like Brian Boyle’s hair and ego.

Here now are two stories: one hilarious, one outstanding. 

Federal officials finally tracked down some propagators of all those fake Winter Classic jerseys you see being worn: [NBC Philadelphia]

Federal officials seized almost $350,000 worth of counterfeit sports merchandise set to be sold during the NHL Winter Classic Monday, authorities say.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigation announced the seizure of 1,649 fake items being sold for the same price at which the genuine merchandise is sold, officials say.

 

Not many details were given, but we’d imagine that several of the Tony The Tiger knockoffs were included in the raid… if they weren’t already sold out to thousands of buy-first, think-later fans, who proudly sported their Winter Classic sweaters before anyone else.

Number two: Philly Sports Daily’s Dave Isaac wrote a tremendous article which gives us a behind the scenes look of HBO’s editing process for 24/7. Here’s an excerpt from his Q & A with producer Dave Harmon:

That saves 40 minutes for a lot of other things and one of the things that’s important to us is how many female viewers we have. We really have people who care about the off-the-ice stuff as much as on-the-ice stuff. We want to have enough on-the-ice stuff for the hockey fan. But there are also people — I don’t want to lump it just with women, because I like when I see about [John] Tortorella and the kid he’s befriended. You see a different side of Tortorella. But anyway, we still need to show that these guys are human and these guys have their own Christmas Eve’s and their own experiences. Bryzgalov had a bad game and he had a press conference where he was pretty disconsolate afterward. It’s showing him in a different light that way. So we need to chronicle our characters of who we’ve been following in different ways to get here even before we get to the game. 

 

Basically, women want to see Claude Giroux in a towel and men want to watch Peter Laviolette curse. If only somehow they could combine the two, and Lavs could curse at a naked Giroux, then we’d have a real ratings bonanza. Guess we have one episode left to find out.

Read:

Dave Isaac’s article on the HBO 24/7 editing process and his full Q & A with producer Dave Harmon.