NHL Gamecenter questions

[Agnostic]

Habs fan in southern Ontario holding $400 Rogers bill in hand , with questions.

Considering ditching cable (and RDS ) and Want to know how I can get hockey and more importantly habs hockey.

In Ontario I would expect to receive on Gamecentre Habs games played in Montreal which aren't televised nationally?

Habs games played in Toronto would be blacked out?

What would be the status of Montreal games televised on CBC as national games but blacked out in Southern Ontario in favour of Leaf games?

What would be the status of nationally televised TSN games?

Finally, what feed does Gamecentre use? English?

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[SooperSingh]

Habs fan in southern Ontario holding $400 Rogers bill in hand , with questions.

Considering ditching cable (and RDS ) and Want to know how I can get hockey and more importantly habs hockey.

In Ontario I would expect to receive on Gamecentre Habs games played in Montreal which aren't televised nationally? yes

Habs games played in Toronto would be blacked out? yes

What would be the status of Montreal games televised on CBC as national games but blacked out in Southern Ontario in favour of Leaf games? all games televised on national networks are blacked out

What would be the status of nationally televised TSN games? blackout, including tsn2

Finally, what feed does Gamecentre use? English?english

They use TSN Habs feed, plus you get the choice of picking the other feed as well.

 

[JLP]

Habs fan in southern Ontario holding $400 Rogers bill in hand , with questions.

Considering ditching cable (and RDS ) and Want to know how I can get hockey and more importantly habs hockey.

In Ontario I would expect to receive on Gamecentre Habs games played in Montreal which aren't televised nationally?

Habs games played in Toronto would be blacked out?

What would be the status of Montreal games televised on CBC as national games but blacked out in Southern Ontario in favour of Leaf games?

What would be the status of nationally televised TSN games?

Finally, what feed does Gamecentre use? English?

In Toronto GameCenter blacked out Habs games if they were on nationally televised last season, actually most games. There is a workaround, search Unblock-Us it's five bucks a month. Then you should be able to watch all the Habs games (and all other teams as well).

 

[Agnostic]

They use TSN Habs feed, plus you get the choice of picking the other feed as well.

In Toronto GameCenter blacked out Habs games if they were on nationally televised last season, actually most games. There is a workaround, search Unblock-Us it's five bucks a month. Then you should be able to watch all the Habs games (and all other teams as well).

Thanks a lot for the information.

 

[smcgreg]

In Toronto GameCenter blacked out Habs games if they were on nationally televised last season, actually most games. There is a workaround, search Unblock-Us it's five bucks a month. Then you should be able to watch all the Habs games (and all other teams as well).

Really? This works? I was pretty PO'd last year that I paid for Gamecenter premium and couldn't get the majority of games I wanted to see. Especially on my phone. If I'm watching on my phone, I'm most likely not near a TV, so, it's not like I'm trying to get a better viewing experience on a 4 in screen.

 

[11Goat11]

Really? This works? I was pretty PO'd last year that I paid for Gamecenter premium and couldn't get the majority of games I wanted to see. Especially on my phone. If I'm watching on my phone, I'm most likely not near a TV, so, it's not like I'm trying to get a better viewing experience on a 4 in screen.

I do this to get US Netflix, it works well.

@Agnostic, $400 Rogers bill that is crazy! Have you tried Bell? I know they are big and evil as well but I have all my services with them and if you call and complain about the price once a year they always give great discounts.

I pay $100/month for sattelite including RDS and movie channels. I also pay $5 extra a month on my cell phone and get 10 hours of sports programming a month, comes in real handy when wanting to watch the Habs game at the in-laws....

 

[Agnostic]

I do this to get US Netflix, it works well.

@Agnostic, $400 Rogers bill that is crazy! Have you tried Bell? I know they are big and evil as well but I have all my services with them and if you call and complain about the price once a year they always give great discounts.

I pay $100/month for sattelite including RDS and movie channels. I also pay $5 extra a month on my cell phone and get 10 hours of sports programming a month, comes in real handy when wanting to watch the Habs game at the in-laws....

I dumped Bell years ago because of a monumental cluster**** they did on a repair , I won't buy from them again.

My $400 is 2 Internet lines, cable, and a mobile plan so its probably going rate but I am looking to scale back if I can.

Good feedback thanks I might try this VPN service .

 

[JLP]

Really? This works? I was pretty PO'd last year that I paid for Gamecenter premium and couldn't get the majority of games I wanted to see. Especially on my phone. If I'm watching on my phone, I'm most likely not near a TV, so, it's not like I'm trying to get a better viewing experience on a 4 in screen.

Yup can watch all games no problem.

 

[Penalty Kill Icing*]

@OP: Any Habs game on CBC, TSN will be blacked out. You can catch CBC games via an antenna. That leaves you with 15 nationally televised games (if I counted correct).

For feed, it was straightforward with other teams, iirc. Because of French language broadcast, GCL didn't have Habs feed at times (or did they use to have TSN-Habs feed? I don't remember it exactly). However, they have started showing RDS feed on Gamecenter this season. (I haven't subscribed this season, but I remember a screenshot this year)

To bypass blackout, you either use paid service like Unblock-us, or a free VPN like SecurityKiss. PM me before you sign-up, I might be able to help you.

 

[habbydude]

i ditched cable and have gamecenter live now, i use tunlr.net to get around blackouts. basically tunlr gives you a new dns and instructions on how to change it. 60 seconds, no cost, you get all gamecenter games, never a blackout
edit the feed for the habs on gamecenter the other night was the cbc feed, it started as rds for the pregame, then switched to cbc at puck drop.

 

[Mkm29]

I live in MTL and have been using GCL on XBOX with Unblock Us all year. Loving it so far, absolutely no problems whatsoever. Get all the games (no blackouts at all). Only minor thing is most of the time I get only one feed choice for Habs games. Quality is great, price is great. Watched so many games last year, lockout made me feel hockey-starved.

Be warned, if you use an Xbox for GCL like I do, it is delayed by about a minute (stay away from GDT if you don't want spoilers). No delay noticeable at all on PC.

My 0.02$ but YMMV

 

[ROSSter]

hockeystreams.com the same quality as NHL GameCentre without the blackouts.

 

[Digger03]

Another option for a DnS server that is better than Unblock.us is called Unotelly. It only 3.99 a month when you buy for the whole year. They have a free trial and also have a way to get free months of usage when you mention them on Twitter and Like them on FB. It works well and Ive never had an issue. I tried Tunlr but couldn't get it work all the time it was hit or miss.

 

[Ezpz]

hockeystreams.com the same quality as NHL GameCentre without the blackouts.

Honestly it's better quality. hockeystreams is so ****ing good.

 

[Bud2790]

To people in North America wanting to sign up for 33% off, follow these instructions

1. Go to http://tunlr.net/
2. Go to the get started drop down menu
3. Choose whatever platform you're using (mac, linux, windows)
4. Follow instructions on the website
5. Once your computer has rebooted, go to nhl.com and sign up for NHL Gamecenter for 99$ instead of 149$.

Basically the only thing you're doing is changing your DNS to make it appear like you're an international customer. For some reason, international people pay 99$ for the year, while we pay 149$. When paying, you can use your canadian or american address without any problem.

 

[Alexdaman]

I use hockeystreams, if you have a laptop with an HDMI output, then I'd say it's by FAR the best choice you can make.

Don't be worried about the quality, it's as good as NHL gamecentre.

 

[Agnostic]

Thanks for all the great suggestions everyone.

 

[ZARTONK]

How does hockeystrems work? Doesn't RDS/TSN have exclusivity for all Habs games?

 

[ROSSter]

How does hockeystrems work? Doesn't RDS/TSN have exclusivity for all Habs games?

Hockeystreams is in a grey area of the law in the sense they are taking feeds and re broadcasting them but they do it from a country where the laws allow such a thing (i think thats their story). So what it means to you is that you get every NHL game in HD for a yeah with a $108 "donation" to hockey streams.

I've been more than happy with the service this year.

 

[overlords]

Honestly it's better quality. hockeystreams is so ****ing good.

Would really recommend hockeystreams to you, Agnostic. I've managed to convert quite a few people here and I've not heard one complaint so far. Loving it.

 

[mobifree]

Does anyone know how they're with refunds? (NHL GCL)

I signed up a couple of weeks ago, and am thinking I should switch to hockeystreams as they have the RDS option which NHL GCL does not.

 

[Agnostic]

Would really recommend hockeystreams to you, Agnostic. I've managed to convert quite a few people here and I've not heard one complaint so far. Loving it.

Ok going to give it a try. Have some concerns about performance with PS3 and wireless but I will try for a month to start. Thanks.

 

[JLP]

Does anyone know how they're with refunds? (NHL GCL)

I signed up a couple of weeks ago, and am thinking I should switch to hockeystreams as they have the RDS option which NHL GCL does not.

Wait and see based on the preseason and first game there appears to be a "francais" option in the "select feed' menu this year. Did not watch it for the opener but did for a preseason game and it was RDS.

Something I appreciate about GameCenter is the "rewind 10 seconds" and "slow mo" options dunno if other services offer that.

 

[overlords]

Ok going to give it a try. Have some concerns about performance with PS3 and wireless but I will try for a month to start. Thanks.

They have day trials too, I believe.

If your internet connection is choppy, you'll likely get a choppy stream, though. I always go wired

 

[JLP]

See this thread re Hockeystreams. As i understand it isn't legit, is it? So yeah even if it's been running awhile you're taking your chances. Especially as its profile increases.