Eagles on Hockey Night in Nunavut

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In addition to the people in the audience at the Eagledome, there are four spectators at every Lebret Eagles' home game. Those are the television cameras that beam a signal to a control truck outside the arena, from there to a video cassette recorder, and onto a video cassette. Three weeks later-thanks to the videotape, a courier company and Television Northern Canada-it's Hockey Night in Nunavut, Denedeh and Yukon.

Twenty-five of the club's home games are to be televised this year, says the Eagles' marketing and communications coordinator, William Alexander. The network, which has a potential audience in the North of about 100,000 also has the option of televising the Eagles' playoff games.

TVNC had space on its schedule, and the hockey club approached the network with the proposal to provide the game to the network, Alexander said. Club officials believed that televising a Native-run hockey club would be a god match for TVNC's viewers, who are mostly Aboriginal, he added.

"It costs us about $300 a game to do this, and the equipment to do this costs about $30,000, but the amount of feedback we've got has been incredible," Alexander said. The games are taped because the price of live broadcasts would be prohibitive, he added.

"We've had giveaways on our telecasts-we give away a shirt or an Eagles' hat-and the Monday after the telecasts, our call message machine is full, and we'd get calls from as far away as B.C. to Ontario and the Yukon." Also, hockey scouts with a satellite dish can watch the games and check on the players.

TVNC shows the games at 3 p.m. Eastern time. The games are available to anyone in the south who has access to a satellite dish. Those who want to watch the Eagles in action should tune their satellite dish to Anik E2-19.