Being a hockey fan living in an area of the country nearly devoid of hockey fans, not to mention professional hockey teams, the availability to subscribe to Center Ice for the hockey season is a pretty enjoyable thing. When I first moved to Oregon in April of 2002, it was at the very beginning of that year's post season. I thought surely when I got here that I'd be able to find a channel that would broadcast at least some of the playoff games, or at the very least, a sports bar where I could watch them, or the Stanley Cup finals at the least.
No dice. I quickly came to the realization that in general, people in Oregon aren't interested in Hockey, and I pretty much gave up on being able to watch it. So for a few years I pretty much stopped following the game. Then one day in 2006, after having moved a few miles from Charter Cable territory into Comcast territory I realized there was a new channel in the listings, OLN, and that intermittently amidst a rather scattered and repetitious programming lineup, they actually broadcast some hockey games.
Moving forward, OLN was eventually replaced with VS, or became VS, or something of the sort, and I realized also that CSN (Comcast Sports Network) also was occasionally broadcasting hockey games. And then during the 07-08 seasons, I noticed that sometimes on Sundays NBC would broadcast a "game of the week". This was all pretty great news to me, being able to finally catch the odd hockey game was fantastic, especially during the playoffs when there was constantly hockey on.
But after a year of trying to follow along throughout the season, and finding that the teams we'd get to see were pretty random when it came to VS and NBC, and limited to "local" hockey teams on CSN (local as in mostly the Vancouver Canucks 425 miles away in Canada, which is a different country, btw. Or the occasional San Jose Sharks game, 565 miles away in California, which borders Oregon, but may still qualify as another country). I could care less about the Canucks, though after watching Vancouver's Hordichuk take a run at Dallas's goalkeeper Marty Turco last night, I'm hoping to get the chance to see Vancouver stomped into the ground in the playoffs. Hating hockey teams is almost as much fun as loving them.
I grew up watching Lemieux play, and have always been a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, and my sweetheart is a Texas transplant, and an avid Dallas Stars fan. So being stuck in the northwest and only being able to catch our teams play every great once in a while before playoff season pretty much just sucked. So this year we made the decision in October that we'd give ourselves an early Christmas present and sign up for Center Ice. At $160 for around 6 months of hockey, it wasn't a terrible deal, as far as cable deals go, though certainly not cheap, but hey, hockey almost every day!
Sometimes the programming has been tricky to follow, you can never be quite sure what broadcast you're going to get for a game. Sometimes you get the home broadcast, sometimes away, sometimes a choice of which one you watch, sometimes their more national and less biased, sometimes you have to sit through another team's whiny announcers who couldn't call a hockey game with any objective prospective if their life depended on it. And sometimes a game you know is on doesn't show up in the Center Ice listings and you have to scramble around the other channels to find it on VS. or CSN or NBC.
See, they have what they call "blackouts" for "local" networks. This makes some sense. If you have a local network that broadcasts the games, Center Ice doesn't compete with them and won't broadcast the same game as them in your market. That was pretty much fine and dandy for a while, as that just meant the game was to be found on another channel. Though really, this didn't seem to apply to CSN games. I've seen San Jose games being broadcast on two Center Ice channels, plus the Center Ice HD channel, plus CSN, all at the same time. Weird, but no problems.
Then came the NHLTV channel in the listings. It seemed that when it started off it was mostly playing "classic" games. Cool! But of course, we couldn't watch them. It turned out that channel was only available as part of a totally separate sports package. So, for some additional monthly fee, you could get that channel, as well as channels for a bunch of sports we don't care about. Not really worthwhile, but oh well.
But, in the last couple months, it's started to become a problem. All of a sudden, NHLTV is broadcasting games live, and they seem to be pretty random, as well as probably just feeds picked up from other networks, the same way they do with Center Ice. The problem is, that the NHLTV broadcasts are treated by Center Ice the same way local network broadcasts are, and they are "blacked out" from Center Ice. So now, on a random but more and more frequently occurring basis, when I go through the Center Ice listings for the day and look for the games I want to set the DVR to record, I find my games missing. I then search VS. for the day. When I don't seem it there I start to get worried/angry. I search NBC on the off chance they might actually show a hockey game on a weeknight. No. CSN ont he chance they're broadcasting something other than Vancouver or San Jose. No. So, feeling defeated, I go and check the NHLTV listings, and sure enough, there's the Dallas or Pittsburgh game I'd been looking forward to watching.
It's pretty clear this was done on purpose. Not to respect the broadcast rights of other networks in local markets as the others are done, but to push people to pony up for yet another package subscription. Not surprising really, Cable television gets more and more ludicrously priced all the time, and the packages are constantly redesigned with an obvious intent to drag people into higher and higher tiers. As it is I'm just waiting to see what the next bill is going to look like, since Comcast has promised rate increases, and has rearranged not just their programming tiers, but how they bill for things like extra cable boxes, digital outlets, and remotes. Should be interesting to see their new gouging schemes.
But seriously, I'm already paying a premium for the channels I have, for the DVR they gave me a couple years ago which they've now decided is an HD DVR and charge me $13.95 for even though I don't have an HDTV, and it was the ONLY DVR available when I got it. And I've paid a decent chunk of money to be able to watch the hockey team I love, and now I can't watch the Calgary @ Pittsburgh game tonight? We're nearing the end of the regular season, and these games are BIG! There's a huge chance this game will be a great one, but despite my weighty cable bill, I'll be reduced to listening to the game broadcast at best.
Bastards. Cable companies are just rotten bastards.
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3 comments:
Gaaahhhh!! Fucking comcast!
That sucks! I've pretty much given up on following hockey myself, since I don't have cable and don't get television stations... Now that Austin has their own hockey team, you can find a game on (or request it) at the odd sports bar, and they don't usually look at you TOO funny... I will say that my friend Moire and I were the only ones yelling and jumping about the bar during last year's final game, but at least we didn't get kicked out!
I believe starting next year you'll have an AHL team there too. Dallas is moving their AHL affiliate to Austin is what I've heard, though the move is awaiting the completion of a new facility somewhere in the area. So you'll have the Texas Stars to catch a game here and there. Eugene actually has a hockey team, we'll probably try and catch some of their games next year. Think tickets are like $8, so, nowhere near pro level, but cheap entertainment!
I'm thinking maybe you should have gotten kicked out of the bar during last year's final game, since if you were yelling and jumping around, you were rooting for the wrong team! ;) If I'd been there, they probably would have kicked me out for crying in my beer.
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