Hockey is the best sport on the planet - period.

I really wish I could invite all the non-hockey fans in the world over to my house to watch a couple games. I have a friend in Australia that’s visited here a couple of times. We took him to a game & he was hooked. Each time he comes over, I try to take him to as many games as possible (we even went up to Ottawa last time to see a game) He used to be able to catch a couple games each week on ESPN, but they dropped the NHL a couple years ago.

Versus does a decent job with their NHL coverage with 2 or 3 games each week & a ton of playoff games. NBC just sucks.

It really is a great game - if you’ve never paid much attention to it, try & catch a game or 2, as the playoffs are about 3 weeks away.

Part of my love for football stems from living in the Buffalo area as well as my love for Fantasy Football. But part of it is that I do really like to watch football. I realized this a couple of years ago while watching a game where I had one guy from my fantasy team playing & he got hurt early on. I just enjoy the game.

The Sabres are my true love. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve followed them. I’ll admit that I lost interest in hockey during the lockout, but about a month before the 2005 season started, days after watching some really old Stanley Cup games from the 70’s (people are still pissed that Philadelphia beat us) my wife gave me season tickets for Christmas (yes, I got my gift a couple months early) and those 2 events got me back on my hockey kick really quick.

As I type this, my Sabres are loosing to Pittsburgh 4-3 with 5:24 left in the third. I have hope.

I’m a big Bills fan as are most of the people in the Buffalo area. I’ve had season tickets for 8+ years now. We tailgate before every game & we get there about an hour before the lot opens so that we can get our favorite parking spot (which means I’m usually out of the house by 6:45 AM)

I think the Bills are entering their 5th rebuilding year - you can tell because we let go pretty much every name you’d recognize on the team - but I’m a fan none-the-less.

I’m a mid-thirties male & I like my sports

I think I’m like most people that have professional sports teams in their area - I follow them & could care less about other sports.

Seeing as I live in the Buffalo, NY area, I’m a big hockey & football fan. When I was a kid, I did follow basketball a little, but that stopped shortly after the Braves moved to San Diego (now the LA Clippers) We do have a AAA Baseball team, but let’s be honest - not too many people care aobut minor league sports. I’m mixed on baseball - I can watch it of there’s a really good pitcher & I do root for the Yankees when they are on, but other than the World Series, I don’t pay too much attention.

I did find NASCAR 3 years ago after the NFL season ended & the NHL was in lockout. I do watch it as much as possible, but last year I sorta flaked out on it once football started back up.

I’m pretty much stuck with Time Warner Cable. We used to have Adelphia, but I think everyone knows what happened to them I was sorta happy when I found out that Time Warner was taking over for Adelphia, as I have a friend in the Syracuse area and I was jealous of all the programming & HD channels he had.

Of course, my joy went away very quickly as soon as the NFL Network was dropped.

My recent complaints to them have been the lack of HD NHL games. We don’t get the Versus network in HD. Last year was great, as Versus simulcast the Playoff games in the now defunct INHD2 channel. This year, the only HD NHL games I’ll get to see are the few that NBC decides to give us as well as games involving Canadian teams that I can watch on CBC via my antenna.

If you have Time Warner, you’ll remember all their football commercials from last year as they tried to convince people that they really didn’t need the NFL Network. These commercials also focused on the HD games they were broadcasting (which was insane, since they did not have the Fox HD channel at the time) Time Warner needs to step up and back hockey the same way they want everyone to believe they back football.

If you have Time Warner, go here & put in your zip code. The click the Customer Service links & email them. Tell them that you want to watch the NHL Playoffs in HD & that they should get the Versus HD channel in their lineup ASAP.

The usual list of stupid & silly sites will be back soon. For now, please visit the old pages, which will remain on line forever.

As always, if you know of a stupid or silly site, please email it to me.

I hate NBC Sports as far as their NHL & Olympic coverage goes. If I had this blog up last year, you’d have seen copies of the many emails I sent to NBC Sports about their lack of HD Hockey coverage as well as their lack of live HD Olympic events. In 2004 when the Olympics were in Greece, their HD channel was pretty much 24/7 HD Olympic programming. The SD feed was the usual daytime crap with a couple of hours of the Olympics at night. For whatever reason, they didn’t do that in 2006.

I’m also really upset at their lackluster attitude towards the NHL. They are the only major network (Versus is not a major network IMHO) that broadcasts NHL games. Supposedly they are all supposed to be in HD (all 9 regular season games - how’s that for a commitment to a sport?) but for whatever reason, the March 4th game I saw was in SD. The reason?:
NBC made a late decision not to air the Philadelphia/Pittsburgh game in high definition. We did not receive notification of the change until Friday evening. The Dallas/Detroit game, which was advertised as well over the past weeks, did air in high definition in other parts of the country. I apologize for the confusion and hope you will continue to watch our programming in the future

Who’s on this Sunday you ask? No one. I have no idea why they’re taking this Sunday off from showing NHL games, but my bet is that it’s golf.

And, while this has nothing to do with HD programing, I love how the show airing locally before the Sunday games is an infomercial, while the hosts plug their 30 minute online pregame show. Someone has to remind NBC that not everyone has a TV sitting next to their computers.

At least their NFL Games are in HD

I like HDNet as well as HDMovies. They do show a handful of NHL games throughout the year as well as some other sporting events (soccer looks amazing in HD) I’m hoping that they will be able to broadcast some of the 2007 NHL Playoffs, but I have a feeling that’s not gonna happen anytime soon.

I hate CBS. Since I follow the Bills, I’m pretty much forced to watch at least 8 games a year on CBS. I think 1-1/2 of them were in HD last year. How is 1/2 a game in HD you ask? The Bills were getting their asses handed to them by the Bears, so CBS decided to change the national feed to another game. That left us watching the 2nd half of the game in SD.

In Nov 2005 I wrote this letter to the local CBS affiliate (I’ve written many to CBS Sports, but I’ve never gotten a reply)

Subject: Show the HD NFL games!

Way to go! I just turned on Fox & will enjoy the Dolphins & Falcons in HD with my antenna.

This is the reply I got back:
As you may be aware, we are at the mercy of CBS. We only air what they give us. We are hopeful all CBS games will be in HD next year.

Regards,
John
Director of Engineering and Operations
WIVB-TV/WNLO-TV

I’m sorry to say that 2006 was the same. I think they only have 3 HD camera crews, which doesn’t work that well if you broadcast 5-7 NFL games each week.

My fingers are crossed that CBS will get all their NFL games in HD for the 2007 season (and you know I’ll be complaining if they don’t)

If you want to complain to CBS about this (and have your complaint fall on deaf ears) then please go here:
http://www.sportsline.com/help/contactus/usersspeak