Although tsn’s sked, due to its nature, is pretty much tied to event programming, the network has traditionally tried to feature a special in the fall lineup, usually a one-off in the vein of Eye On The Diamond (a 20-year history of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball franchise) and Mario Lemieux: Magnificent One, an authorized biography of the nhl player. On Remembrance Day, the network will launch its most ambitious documentary programming to date.

‘If this is successful,’ says Jeffrey Elliott, tsn’s director of media development, ‘we hope to have what we call a `mega special’ miniseries at least once a year.’

The five-part Legends of Hockey series is a $1.5 million coproduction with Derik Murray of Vancouver’s Opus Productions. This is Opus’ first major broadcast venture – the company specializes in the production of high-quality coffee-table books. It’s produced projects for The Hockey Hall of Fame, football great Joe Montana and pro golfer Arnold Palmer.

Elliott says scheduling problems have been one of the main reasons the network hasn’t delved as deeply into coproduced series sooner. ‘Due to our nature, it’s been difficult to effectively program non-event programming on a consistent basis. We’ve programmed series like For The Love Of The Game, but they were standalone hours and they were sprinkled throughout the schedule.’

The programming strategy for Legends of Hockey is to have it run every Monday for five consecutive weeks, with each time slot leading into or running out from hockey.

However, the television component of Legends of Hockey is only one part of a complete multimedia package built around the idea. Since the revamp and relaunch of tsn’s Web site tsn.ca earlier this year, the network has attempted to tie its multimedia philosophy securely to all its programming.

Penguin Books is marketing an Opus Legends of Hockey coffee-table book, and Quality Special Products is releasing the series on home video. Five one-hour Legends of Hockey radio docs have been versioned from the tv series for TSN Sports Radio, as well as 48 30-second radio vignettes. Elliott says all the products – minus the book, which was completed prior to production of the series – will carry the tsn brand and will be marketed together.

‘We’re all going to make money from this,’ says Elliott. ‘We’re taking the tsn brand with our Web and radio knowledge, the high production values of Opus, the direct response expertise of Quality and the publishing expertise of Penguin. It’s a very strong package.’

Stateside, the series will air on American sports network espn in March.

On the Web, Legends of Hockey has had a page within tsn.ca since April, letting tsn’s cyber-audience in on the series as it was being developed. ‘Our users had access to clips and graphics elements all the way through until the series was done,’ says Elliott. ‘When the series is over we’ll be hosting online interview sessions with some of the hockey greats featured in the docs.’