Philadelphia Daily News

PHILADELPHIA -- It was like the Mayan calendar.

The NBA knew exactly by what date it had to settle its differences with its players or face Armageddon for the 2011-12 season.

OK, Don Garber, the soccer world is waiting to see what you will do.

When broadcast networks' executives sleep, they probably dream of series like NBC's "Awake," a cop show with a premise unusual enough to generate buzz but not so out there that people who like cop shows wouldn't recognize it while channel-surfing.

Of course, if those suits work at NBC, they might also dream of a better time slot than 9 p.m. Thursdays, which has evolved since the days of "ER" from the hottest real estate in TV to a place where "Prime Suspect" and "The Firm" couldn't get arrested.

But even if the neighborhood's not what it once was, "Awake" is the kind of property worth going a little out of your way for: a high-concept drama that packs an emotional punch while, yes, solving crimes.

The very blue-eyed Jason Isaacs ("Brotherhood," "Harry Potter") stars as Los Angeles police detective Michael Britten, the survivor of a car crash that's killed either his wife, Hannah (Laura Allen of "Terriers") or their son Rex (Dylan Minnette of "Saving Grace").

Or possibly both.

At his Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2005, Ryne Sandberg gravitated toward his people. Ozzie Smith, Cal Ripken, Joe Morgan, Robin Yount. Second basemen, shortstops, guys who could play their position well and hit for average and hit it out of the park.

Two summers later, Sandberg naturally gravitated toward his people again at the annual ceremony. Only this time the names were guys like Tommy Lasorda and Earl Weaver -- ham-and-eggers as players, world champions as managers.

It has been 2 1/2 months since the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal incited national passions, embroiled Penn State in a controversy that isn't going away any time soon and, oh, yeah, tarred and feathered the previously pristine image of Sandusky's former boss, Joe Paterno, the iconic, octogenarian football coach of the Nittany Lions whom so many were quick to chastise as an enabler to a pedophile and so many others were equally quick to defend as a blameless victim of circumstance.

John Collins will tell you the idea grew from seeing the same picture on several walls in the NHL offices. NBC's Jon Miller, the other man credited with creating the Winter Classic, remembers watching people wrapped like fur trappers in Edmonton way back in 2003 for an outdoor NHL game between the Oilers and Canadiens and thinking, "Yankee Stadium."

But the real heroes in the amazing growth of the Winter Classic reside not in the New York offices of Collins' NHL, or cross town in the offices at 30 Rock, where Miller is a vice president of sports. No, the real heroes are the Einsteins who first invented the concept of the Bowl Championship Series, then moved their most significant games off New Year's Day, or its legal holiday equivalent.

To a league seeking to infiltrate American culture, it was the equivalent of volunteering to serve a game misconduct. Collins, 50, had barely unpacked his boxes when Miller called him with this idea he had been sitting on since he got that glimpse of the 2003 Heritage Classic, played in Edmonton between the Oilers and Canadiens in late November amid temperatures barely over freezing. That's the picture Collins kept seeing on office walls, too, specifically that of NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly.

NEW YORK -- Housed on the 15th floor of a nondescript Manhattan office building, the NHL's headquarters are plush and stunningly modern. In the lobby, there are three flat-panel televisions with EA Sports' NHL 12 video game begging for someone to pick up the controller on the PlayStation 3 -- possibly set for a bad boy in town to meet with dean of discipline Brendan Shanahan.

Flanked by chief operating officer John Collins, the creative brains behind the Winter Classic, and deputy commissioner Bill Daly, the Philadelphia Daily News spent an hour on a recent Friday with commissioner Gary Bettman in an exclusive interview. They were seated in a swank conference room, with microphones at each of the 30 chairs -- one for each team in the league.