ESPN official has praise for The Bank

My colleague Neal Justin talked to ESPN officials today and it sounds like things are going just fine for the network as it prepares for Monday night's telecast of the Vikings and Bears from TCF Bank Stadium. ESPN will use its usual 32 cameras for a Monday night telecast and that will include Skycam. About the only change that has been made is one end zone camera will have to be elevated by about 40 feet more than usual. The fact ESPN had time to get Skycam, which hovers above the field on wires, ready for this game surprised me but it turns out the lead technician for that camera was able to start wiring it early in the week because he had been in town to work the Vikings-Giants game at the Metrodome. Of course, that game was moved to Ford Field in Detroit. "Everything seems well," ESPN spokesman Bill Hoffheimer said. "The spirit of cooperation is unbelievable. ... The stadium is about as good of a college stadium as you can have and actually it's wired better than the Metrodome, if only because it's newer."