There's a play in game Saturday and the leagues American TV partner won't show it

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

You paid money for Gamecenter Live to watch out-of-market games that were not being broadcast nationally (which includes the NHL Network). You were getting exactly what you paid for. If you're not getting something that you thought you paid for, that's your problem for not understanding what you purchased.

No I get it, I’ve been a gamecenter and CI subscriber since it first became available.

What I’m saying is I think NHL network games should be a part of the gamecenter package. I know it’s not, but it should be. NHL network just steals the local feed anyway, so that they’re doing is just taking away a gamecenter game away from me by putting the feed on their channel.

But the NHL chooses not to do it, which is fine, I’m not going to pay extra for that crappy channel though so I’ll be missing those games. I’ll just go do something else with my entertainment dollar.

 

[Brock Radunske]

Ugh. I use to swear up and down when a game I wanted to watch on Gamecenter Live wasn't available because it was playing on the NHL Network. I'm like " F***, I paid my money already to watch my team"

I feel ya. That nonsense promoted me to get a VPN.

 

[Captain Fantastic]

No I get it, I’ve been a gamecenter and CI subscriber since it first became available.

What I’m saying is I think NHL network games should be a part of the gamecenter package. I know it’s not, but it should be. NHL network just steals the local feed anyway, so that they’re doing is just taking away a gamecenter game away from me by putting the feed on their channel.

But the NHL chooses not to do it, which is fine, I’m not going to pay extra for that crappy channel though so I’ll be missing those games. I’ll just go do something else with my entertainment dollar.

Yup, I feel like it's double-dipping in a way.

 

[puckIuck]

i think it was in 2007 when nbc decided to show horse racing over a conference final ot elimination game. american networks have made their stance on hockey well known for a while now.

 

[danderson400]

Uhh,it would be preempting an IndyCar race. I personally wouldn't care if they did but you'd have quite a few IndyCar fans that are rightly pissed off that their race was taken off the air for a regular season NHL game, regardless of it being a play-in game. And sure NBC is airing re-runs of Superstore, Dateline and SNL during the game but on short notice, on a Saturday night when not many people are going to be inside watching TV anyways, for a game that starts at 9 pm Eastern, does it really make sense to fly a crew out there to call a game that's going to have minimal interest outside of Denver and St. Louis?

And the NBA wouldn't air two teams fighting for the 8th seed on the final game of the season on national TV. Are you kidding me? Fans of those teams wouldn't even care because they would be crushed by the #1 seed. I mean honestly, back in 2014-15 Brooklyn and Indiana finished the season with 38-44 records, Brooklyn must have won whatever the tiebreaker was because they made the playoffs. If they played each other on the last game of the season do you seriously think the NBA would've been like, this is a game we have to get on national TV so we can show everyone just how mediocre our product is outside the top 5 teams? Of course they wouldn't have done that, because it would be stupid. The losing team had a better chance of winning the lottery than the winning team had of winning the title.

NBC might not want to piss off IndyCar, given they've just signed a big deal to air every race, including the Indy 500. Airing STL/COL instead of the race would make IndyCar mad big time.

 

[rojac]

Typical. NBC/NBCSN forces meaningless regular season games down our throats but they don't show the one game (essentially a Game 7) that matters.

I suspect that St. Louis/Colorado is meaningless to a lot of hockey fans.

 

[rojac]

For Canadians, Rogers isn't going to show this game on any of the SN channels tonight, correct?

Correct. And I really doubt many Canadian fans care.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

I said “if”. Clearly the answer is that it’s not, which was my whole point in the first place.

So your whole point is that regular season hockey should be NBC's #1 programming priority?

Ok then...

 

[Barrie22]

Correct. And I really doubt many Canadian fans care.

No fans outside of blues and avs fans care

 

[Dont Toews Me Bro]

I suspect that St. Louis/Colorado is meaningless to a lot of hockey fans.

Not to any true hockey fan it is.

Plus you'd think NBC/NBCSN would want the ad revenue

 

[KMart27]

Not to any true hockey fan it is.

Plus you'd think NBC/NBCSN would want the ad revenue

The St. Louis/Colorado game overlaps with 13 other games. Many of which still matter for playoff positioning. Fans of teams missing the playoffs might also want to watch their team's final game seeing as how it is six months before they will see them again.

 

[NickWIHockey]

A "play in" game in the traditional sense is an additional game (beyond the regular season) but before the "regular" playoffs start which is used as a tiebreaker if both teams finish with the same record. The NHL uses an elaborate tiebreaker system and no "play in" games occur.

It just works out this year that the two teams vying for the last playoff spot happen to play each other in final game of the regular season. It's a nice coincidence, but it's not a "play in game"

Not in the purest sense anyway.

thats not exactly true. while playin games arent automatic, as in MLB if theres a tie, theres potential for them. NHL had a tiebreaker game set in 2000 if Buffalo and i think new Jersey finished tied in points (it didnt happen) and we nearly had one this year between PHI/ FLA. Frankly I'd enjoy having a game 83 on a regular basis. Baseball does it, why not hockey?

 

[AdmiralsFan24]

Just thought I'd bump this back up because there is a play in game in the NBA tomorrow night between Minnesota and Denver. ESPN is showing Bucks @ Sixers and Jazz @ Blazers instead.