Center Ice: What You've Been Missing

I won't lie to you and say that hockey is a highly watched sport in this country. To face facts, it's well known that Football, Baseball, Basketball, College Football and Basketball, and sadly Nascar all have better ratings than Hockey in America. So why is that? Oh we could debate that all day long. There's little tv coverage as it is, ESPN having dropped the sport by around the lockout time. This was both good and bad. Bad in the sense that ESPN is the largest sports market in the country, maybe the world, and the exposure they had would help any sport...except Magic: The Gathering, what the heck is that doing on there? Then again look what ESPN has done for poker.

More to the point though, it was good that ESPN dropped it for this reason: ESPN doesn't know jack about hockey. If Barry Melrose is your idea of ESPN's Don Cherry, then it was doomed from the start. I'm not saying all the analysts were bad, but you can't kid yourself in thinking their thoughts on the sport had much merit. Picking the Rangers to win the cup each year should have been embarassing enough as before the lockout, the Rangers were basically like the Yankees in buying their teams up full of supposedly great or at least once great players...except unlike the Yankees they couldn't even sniff the playoffs, not until the lockout ended and they were forced to budget some rookies.

Most of the games now are broadcast in 3 ways. The first is the local broadcast of your home town team. That includes stations like multiple FSNs, MSG in New York, and some sort of very strange My35 or CW hybrid that the Stars have unleashed (it's not pretty, that logo is harsh to stare at). The second is of course the national broadcast. No longer done by ESPN or ABC in America, that's now fallen to Versus (VS.), formerally OLN the Outdoor Life Network. Yes, much like TNN became SpikeTV when they realized the wonders of "ratings" from wrestling, OLN changed its image to follow suit and become more real sports oriented and less outdoorsy. The result? Well the broadcast is better than last year's was and the name is actually better (you will typically see the team names during a game on the top screen with the VS symbol between them, subtle but effective). Of course the channel itself has changed very little; they're clearly doing their best to become a hockey marketed station since that's all they have going for them when no one would dare watch a bull riding matchup (or god help us, a BBQ championship? Starting to make ESPN look good). But it's refreshing to see a channel that actually cares about the sport because it drives their network as opposed to being 5th tier on the Bottom Line. ABC left the party but NBC picked it up, pretty seemless in that (as long as FOX is out the picture that's all that matters). NBC only plays games pretty much on Saturday afternoons where the NHL makes sure there are 3 or so 2pm games that day for them to show, starting in January on. NBC also gets the last two rounds of the playoffs so anyone with a tv and basic cable can catch the glory of the Stanley Cup finals, the true showcase of the game (not to mention the All-Star game).

I could also mention the national broadcasts in Canada like TSN (the Canadian ESPN), CBC, Sportsnet and the like, but in America that really falls in the 3rd category: Center Ice. If you are a hockey fanatic, you owe yourself one in getting this package. Unlike NFL Sunday ticket, this can be ordered through either digital cable or satellite, not just DirecTV. The typical cost for this is about $170 or so, with a $20 discount if you do it just before or during the early part of the season. So for about $150, what do you get? Approximately 40 hockey games a week, and 1,000 games a season, sometimes including stuff like a World Junior Tournament or the AHL All-Star game, as well as the first 2 rounds of the playoffs since VS. won't be able to get all of them. Alright, so it sounds like I'm shilling for this thing, though it's not like I'm being paid to say this, but hear me out.

Center Ice is for the following people: If you are a big fan of a team, but you do not live in that market area where they are broadcast, this is totally perfect for you. See they broadcast all those team's games on Center Ice. But I'm sure you're asking, aren't there blacked out games? This is true, your home team will likely blackout some games during the season. But here's the wonderful catch: If for any game that a team blacks out the opposing team's broadcast is still showing it locally, Center Ice will pick up that feed instead! Meaning that even if those back home watching your favorite team can't see it, you likely can with Center Ice. CI will usually choose to broadcast the home team's showing of the game, unless there is a blackout and the away team's broadcast can be chosen instead (by the provider, not by you).

CI is also great if you play fantasy hockey and you want to keep track of your players. Moreover, it will allow you to see players and teams you might normally never get a chance to watch. Being an Eastern Conference fan, I basically never got to see Western Conference teams and players. With CI, I can catch all those 9 and 10pm games and some of them are incredibly entertaining. Not to mention all the other games you're missing by only seeing your local team's broadcast. Of course if you don't care about this (though you may not know about some of the great hockey that you're missing out on) and/or you live in your local team's broadcast area, then this might not be for you. As I mentioned above about not missing blacked out games, all games by the team in your local area will be blacked out on Center Ice regardless of if it's being shown locally or by another team. That's just the harsh rules of the local broadcaster. Of course as long as your local team is showing it on their channel you can watch it on there anyway.

So I leave it up to you if you want to take part in Center Ice. Sure this seems like a sales pitch, but believe me when I say if you're a hockey nut or are missing your favorite team play live (not to mention some of the amazing Canadian broadcasts, you just can't miss Don Cherry on CBC or a French-broadcast Montreal game) you shouldn't miss out on this. It is likely the cheapest sports package out there because of the low popularity of the sport here and that's to your advantage. $150 or so for over 1,000 games? Now that's a present for the Holidays that any Puckhead would love to have. I know I've been loving it since I started it last season.

See you at the red line, somewhere in the 500 channel area.

P.S. As a digital cable subscriber, since you need that to get Center Ice (not familiar with satellite), the basic package will usually come with VS. if you don't already have it.