Newspaper Previews MVP

If MVP fails to garner ratings on SOAPnet, it won't be for a lack of hype.

Ads for the show have been popping up all over television and magazines, while ABC is even airing it a day after its debut on SOAPnet. Moreover, The New York Daily News has penned a preview of the series:

The Mustangs are an unusual hockey team. They only seem to recruit players who look like their previous experience came in a Calvin Klein ad. They also don't seem to play any hockey - or at least we never see any hockey on opening night.

Building a soap around a hockey team isn't necessarily a silly idea.

The behind-the-scenes world of professional sports, as Dan Jenkins demonstrated years ago with the marvelous novel "Semi-Tough," can easily be infused with money, sex and drugs, not to mention hot guys and sultry gals with no discernible moral standards.

In other words, turf that seems to have been plowed and prepped just for soap operas.

"MVP" spends its first night setting up the characters.

The players include Adam McBride (Aidan Devine), the Mustangs' aging star; Trevor LeMonde (Dillon Casey), rookie phenom from the sticks; Gabe McCall (Lucas Bryant), the team captain, who's trying to reform his life and become a good person; and Damon Trebuchet (Peter Miller), the rat who's secretly tormented but still a rat.

Read the rest of the preview now. And tune in tonight to MVP!

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.