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TIME WARNER CABLE ADDS VERSUS HD FOR HOCKEY PLAYOFFS
Digital Cable Customers Will Receive Versus HD May 10th on Channel 708

BUFFALO, NY- May 8, 2007 - Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second-largest cable television operator, today announced the temporary addition of Versus HD to its HD offerings for digital cable customers on Channel 708. The addition of Versus HD will allow hockey fans to enjoy the hockey playoff games beginning Thursday, May 10 until the end of the hockey season. Versus will not black out any more games in this region and has pledged to cover two games of the Stanley Cup. Versus offers the Golf Channel from noon until seven and then begins its Versus hockey coverage at seven.

"Time Warner Cable has heard the clamor of our customers for Versus HD in order to see the hockey playoffs through the best picture available. We are pleased to have the technology and the ability to offer this great opportunity for the next month," stated Gordon Harp, Buffalo Division President, Time Warner Cable. "Behind the scenes we have had to work very fast and juggle some other commitments but we felt this was important to our customers in Western New York. As a company Time Warner Cable strives to provide the best products and services every day."

Versus will remain available on Channel 71 to standard package customers after this temporary viewing of Versus HD ends. Versus is the national cable home of the National Hockey league (NHL) and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Now in more than 72 million homes, the network is a destination for sports fans, athletes and sportsmen to find exclusive, competitive events that audiences can’t find elsewhere.

As one of the customers that clamored about being able to see Versus in HD, this makes me so happy!

But it does make me wonder if they only did this because you can pick up CBC’s HD signal out of Toronto & all the games from here on out will be on CBC. I hope they prove me wrong & keep it past the playoffs.

The NHL Conference Finals will start this weekend, but you won’t see any of the action on NBC. Why? Well, it seems that NBC cares more about Golf, Law & Order, and Shrek.

Saturday is Game 2 of the Sabres/Senators series. NBC will be showing Golf from 2:00-7:00, then Dateline (which is pretty much on every day now) & 2 of the many Law & Order spin-offs.

Sunday is Game 2 of the Ducks/Red Wings series. NBC will be again showing Golf from 2:00-7:00 and 2001’s Shrek at 8:00 (who hasn’t seen this 6 year old movie?)

Why does the NHL put up with this? They let NBC push them around when it’s convenient for them. NBC made the NHL completely screw up the Senators/Penguins Round 1 series by moving Game 2 in Ottawa from Friday to Saturday afternoon, even though Game 3 was Sunday night in Pittsburgh. Why? Two words: Sidney Crosby. I bet if Pittsburgh was still in the playoffs, they’d be showing that game on Saturday or Sunday.

NBC has also left themselves open to potentially having no games to air on May 19th & 20th. Now, I don’t think that either of the series will be a 4-0 sweep, but if they are - or even if one of them is - that would leave the National TV audience with one or zero hockey games for THREE weeks (there’s no games scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend)

I don’t write this as a Sabres fan, I write it as a fan of hockey. I want hockey to succeed on a National level, and for that to happen, NBC has to step up & do what they can to make that happen.

I was just looking at NBC’s NHL Playoffs schedule and something struck me as odd…there’s no games scheduled for May 12th or 13. I though that was very strange, since the Conference Finals will be starting that weekend.

Now what major event could make NBC forget that they have the national NHL TV contract once again? Oh yeah! The ever popular Par 3 Water Hole.

Think about this for a second: all of the 9 games that NBC was generous enough to broadcast for us during the NHL regular season had a 12:30 PM starting time. This horrendous time was not something the NHL wanted - NBC wanted it so that they could show 3-4 hours of golf after. So why not schedule Game 1 or 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Saturday at 12:30? It’ll be on the East coast (Buffalo or New Jersey will be the home team), it’ll be over by 3 or so & then NBC can let everyone watch professional golfers hit balls into the water until 7 PM.

OR - and here’s a really whacky idea: How about a 7 or 8 PM game? Seems to work really well for Canada.

Of course I’ll be sending a version of this post to NBC & the NHL & anyone else I can find an email address for & I encourage you to do the same.

The 2nd round of the 2007 NHL Playoffs kicks off tonight & I’m not sure if I’m upset or happy with the schedule.

On Sunday, NBC said that Game 2 of the Sabres/Rangers series was going to be on Saturday or Sunday, which I thought was great because it’d be a home game for the Sabres & Buffalo can always use a little bit of National exposure. But then they decided that the 1st 2 Sabres games would be on Versus, with Game 3 on Sunday at MSG in NY. The Saturday game on NBC is in Detroit.

Now, even though the NBC website says that the games for May 5th & 6th are “To Be Determined”, you can see on the Yahoo NHL page that Saturday the 5th is again in Detroit & Sunday the 6th is again in New York.

In order for the NHL to do this, they had to adjust their normal “on-off-on” scheduling for both of these series. The only good thing is that they did it without causing either series of play back-to-back games.

So while I wish that the NHL & NBC would come to buffalo, I’m happy that I’ll get to watch the away games on NBC in High Def

(NOTE - This page will be updated after each Sabres home game)

I got the idea for this project during last years Sabres Playoff run. For some reason, a lot of over-zealous fans took time out of their day to make their very own Stanley Cup. Some of them are not that bad, but others are, well, I’ll let you see for yourself

Round 1 - Sabres vs Islanders

April 12th 2007 Game 1

This young go-getter took the time to write all the players names onto the cup.

Isn’t that cute!

I agree with the sign….

"We are the Knights who say…Ni!"

April 14th 2007 Game 2

This man made me kiss his Cup after I took the picture.

April 20th 2007 Game 5

I asked the girl in the middle if I could take a picture of her & her Cup & I was told that it was "Our Cup"

Of course, The Sabres did win, so expect more Home Made Stanley Cups from Round 2!

Round 2 - Sabres vs Rangers

April 25th 2007 Game 1
I’m sad to say that I did not see any new Cups at this game, but Game 2 made up for it.

April 27th 2007 Game 2

I’m still trying to figure out what he used for the top of this one.

It’s a little blurry, but I think this one is all plastic & maybe from some sort of "Make Your Own Cup" kit.

Cute, but sad.

I honestly think the workers at the food stand made this one out of things they found in the kitchen.

Decent Cup, but yet another reminder as to why you should always wear a blank t-shirt under a white jersey.

At first, he thought I wanted him to take a picture of me with his Cup.  The he asked why I wanted a picture of him with it - the 1st person to question my motives!

May 4th 2007 Game 3

A cake mixing bowl, some tin foil & a poster.

Round 3 - Sabres vs Senators

May 10th 2007 Game 1


These 2 Home-Made disasters were being used to catch the free t-shirts that SabreTooth was throwing from the stage.

You can tell it’s Round 3 because people are holding the cup over their heads without being asked to do so.

May 12th 2007 Game 2

I had to pull over on the way to the game & snap this one.  Of course, I forgot to bring my camera into the game, so this is the only pic I have from Game 2 (but my fingers are crossed that there will be a Game 5 & a Game 7)

May 19th 2007 Game 5

I’m more concerned with the creep behind them.

She had a mini-cup around her neck - and why do girls put hearts on everything?

I had hoped to bring you pictures from the Stanley Cup Finals, but my Sabres got beaten by Ottawa 4-1

But a friend of mine invited me up for Game 3 in Ottawa!

Stanley Cup Finals - Senators vs Ducks

June 2nd 2007 Game 3

This was on the waiter’s head at East Side Mario’s before the game.

Nothing beats decorating the truck as well.

Not home made, but it is a nice image outside the arena.

The tinfoil under it had the batteries & he sat below me, so we got to see him turn on the x-mas lights.

You can tell by the dent that this was taken after the game.

That’s it until next year!

I know, I know…I’m bashing Time Warner again.

If you have Time Warner, you probably saw their massive football advertising campaign last year. They presented it to us as if they cared about the viewers. Their ads boasted how you’d be able to watch all your home teams games as well as how many of them are in HD:

We know you love football - which is why Time Warner Cable offers tons of NFL games every week on CBS, FOX, NBC or ESPN. In addition, many games can be seen in High Definition, where available.

Seeing these ads on Fox during NFL games was kinda funny since they did not have the HD Fox channel at the time. But that’s another story.

Everyone really knows that these ads were basically anti-NFL Network ads. Time Warner & The NFL Network have yet to come to an agreement as far as carrying the channel, and that’s another story that I’m sure will grab the headlines in a couple months.

Now here’s my beef: Time Warner runs all these commercials about how much they care about their viewers & I say that’s a load of crap. If they cared about the viewers in the Buffalo area (and any other area that has a hockey team) they’d actually go out & get a deal made to carry Versus in HD.

Look here at the NHL Playoffs TV Schedule for the 1st round. Part of me is upset that NBC has decided to not schedule ANY Sabres games - after all, they are the #1 team in the league. So for Buffalo fans, Games 1 & 7 are on MSG (that’s another mess of a story that I don’t want to get into) and games 2 thru 6 are on Versus.

Think about the commercials they could run, boasting that they are the only way to watch Hockey in HD in the Buffalo area. Instead, no matter how much I complain & request the channel, all they do is remind me what (little) HD hockey they have (as if I didn’t know that NBC carried HD games).

Buffalo games pull massive ratings when they are on:

From The Buffalo News - NBC has to be impressed by Buffalo’s TV ratings. The Sabres’ win over Pittsburgh Tuesday to clinch the Eastern Conference title had an incredibly strong 12.2 rating here on Versus even though it was competing for separate hours with “American Idol” (16.9) and “Dancing with the Stars” (11.4).

Now that it’s the playoffs, those numbers will only increase.

I know I complain a lot, but I want to watch the NHL Playoffs in HD & I’m sick of Time Warner pretending that they care about me. It’s time for them to step up & prove it.

The NHL playoffs started last night & silly me, I watched the one blowout game Ottawa beat up on Pittsburgh, but I’m betting that the Pens were a little nervous as most were in their 1st ever NHL Playoff game. Look for this series to get very interesting.

But the 3 games that I did not watch (I was sleepy) were all 1 goal games & 2 of them went to multiple OT’s before they were decided:
Anaheim 2 Minnesota 1
San Jose 5 Nashville 4 - 2 OT
Vancouver 5 Dallas 4 - 4 OT

I don’t know how anyone that watches hockey can say it’s boring. If you’re not a hockey fan, give it a shot during the playoffs.

YIPEE! The Stanley Cup Playoffs start tonight!

Of course, I’m torn as to what channel to watch it on.

Both CBC (complete Round 1 Schedule is here) and Versus (complete Round 1 Schedule is here) have Pittsburgh vs Ottawa and Dallas vs Vancouver. I want to watch the games in High Def, which means I’ll want to have CBC on. But I also want to support hockey here in America, which means I should watch the games on Versus.

I think the solution to this is to turn all my cable boxes to Versus & then just watch the games via the antenna on CBC

Ok - the regular season has wrapped up for the Sabres & the playoffs start this week. I’ve got my 1st & 2nd Round tickets in hand, I’ve got my Miller jersey washed & I’ve shaved for the last time.

I’m not a big fan of shaving anyway & I rarely use a razor. I just take the trimmer, put it at the lowest setting & have at it. So today as soon as the Sabres/Flyers game ended, I grabbed the trimmer. I will not shave again until the Sabres have won the Stanly Cup! (or loose, but let’s not talk about that)

I did this last year as well, but I’m not sure exactly when I shaved for the last time. It might have been the day of or the day after the last game, but I know it was not immediately following the conclusion of the last game - and maybe that’s why we didn’t go to the finals.

(I know that my shaving habits have ZERO effect on how the Sabres do, but just shut up & let me pretend)

I am really starting to hate NBC.

In the Jury out on Sabres, NBC deal column by Alan Pergament in Saturday’s edition of The Buffalo News, it was mentioned that once again, NBC Sports will only be airing 9 regular season games for the 2007-08 NHL season. 6-1/2 months of games & the one major network that broadcasts the NHL will be showing us less than 1% of the games.

They did say that they would be adopting a flex schedule (like they have with the NFL) and I agree that that is a step in the right direction. It also means that the Buffalo area will be seeing less of the Rangers & Islanders, because based on the 9 “regional” games I saw this year, NBC thinks that New York City is near Buffalo & that the NY teams are in our division.

NBC will be airing 2 games a week during the playoffs and they will be airing games 3 thru 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, which is kinda big for them seeing as I can’t remember the last time I saw an NHL game on NBC during the week. I also noticed on the NBC Sports website that they will be moving their 30 minute pre-game show from the internet to the television for their 1st playoff broadcast April 14th. I really hope that the local stations don’t loose too much money by airing the pre-game show instead of an Infomercial.

Now some of you will say that Versus is a national channel, and I agree. But it’s not NBC. It’s not even close to ESPN. And, as you know, I can’t find it in High Def. They have the main TV contract for the NHL, but they only air 2 games a week - and those are on Monday’s & Tuesday’s! Apparently, Bull Riding is a higher priority since it has the usual Saturday night prime time slot.

I’d like to thank my parents for raising me close enough to Canada so that I can watch the High Def broadcast of CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada. NBC & Versus should really watch how they cover the NHL (as well as the Olympics) because they both have a lot to learn.