Two southern Ontario cities received an unexpected acknowledgement on ESPN this week – but the map that illustrated it may have left Canadians scratching their heads in confusion.

On Monday’s edition of “The Jump,” an NBA discussion show, Rachel Nichols devoted nearly four minutes of airtime to the Los Angeles Lakers’ slow start to the season and their Sunday loss to the Toronto Raptors.

“While everyone from Hamilton to Oshawa knows it won’t mean anything until the Raptors succeed in the playoffs, it’s still worth saying that on another night of drama … the Raptors showed themselves to be the biggest stars,” she said.

It wasn’t Nichols’ opinion on the respective fortunes of the Lakers and Raptors that attracted attention online, though. Much more was made of the map which accompanied her comments.

For 25 seconds, ESPN viewers saw a map which purported to pinpoint Toronto, Hamilton and Oshawa, but was actually hundreds of kilometres off base. The ‘Hamilton’ marker was placed near Windsor, Ont., while the ‘Oshawa’ label appeared to be in the vicinity of Kingston, Ont.

The map mishap received a number of comments when the segment was posted to ESPN’s YouTube page.

“I guess ESPN has never heard of Google Maps,” one user said.

“Relax, no one cares about Canada,” another user replied.

Nichols addressed the mistaken map Monday night, tweeting that she wrote Oshawa and Hamilton into her script because she had spent time in both cities.

“Serves me right,” she said. Nichols’ tweet also included a map with the two cities’ actual locations circled in what she called “a crude make-good attempt.”