To all of the NHL fans out there who are dreading the possibility of an NHL lockout this year which could doom the entire 2012-13 professional hockey season the two videos below should put you at ease somewhat because not all professional hockey will vanish this upcoming winter. Not even close. There's still the BHL - yep, the Bikini Hockey League. Bikini-clad women on skates taking to hockey rinks across the country. It should be at least as entertaining as the NHL usually is and will likely be as competitive and interesting to watch as the Lingerie Football League.
Showing posts with label hockey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hockey. Show all posts
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Why broadcast in HD?
Much has been made in the past decade about High-Definition (HD) broadcasting. It was touted as the biggest advancement in television since color TV. I remember first seeing a High-Definition broadcast during some incarnation of the Winter Olympics as I wandered through the Rochester, MN Best Buy store. I am fairly certain that the local NBC affiliate, KTTC, wasn’t yet broadcasting in HD (this may have been as far back as 1998, more likely 2002) but they had a handful of many-thousand-dollar plasma televisions showing the most kick-ass picture that I had ever seen on a TV. I know it was a hockey game being broadcast but beyond that I can’t remember anything else.
Fast forward about a decade and I actually own two HD sets. But I still only receive a handful of channels -- mainly the local Twin Cities signals - in High-Def. This is one part my own frugality (I refuse to pay an additional $7.95/month for a box from Mediacom which forces me to use their shitty remote and make room for a clunky, ass-ugly box) and another part the fault of the companies broadcasting the very content we watch. The first local affiliate I received was KARE-11. KSTP, FOX 9 and WCCO followed within a year but then things stopped. It took another year of so before Mediacom Cable started re-transmitting High-Def signals for KPXM (Ion) and WFTC just arrived on my TVs a few months ago along with WGN. I’m still holding out for KSTC (45) and that’s where the story really begins.
KSTC-45 has the rights to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota State High School League playoff games and the Minnesota Wild. While I haven’t caught either an NBA or NHL game on KSTC I did pass by and watch a few seconds of a high school hockey state playoff game last night. To put it bluntly it looked like shit.
The picture was best described as muddy and grainy, the audio sounded like it was first being passed through a bucket of thick Mississippi River mud and I could barely read the scores in the graphics bar at the top of the screen. And to top it all off, it was still being broadcast in standard definition (the old not-widescreen 4:3 aspect ratio).
Why, in 2011, are any sports being shown not in full widescreen high definition? I am not sure if this is an issue with the broadcast equipment being used by the folks producing the high school games for KSTC or if the fault lies with KSTC themselves.
I do know that a huge amount of responsibility lies with Mediacom, my cable television provider, for not granting its customers access to the last broadcast television station in the Twin Cities not available in high definition. The other gripe about the lack of high definition broadcasts lies, again, with cable providers. They are viewing the advent of high definition not as a way to provide a better experience to their viewers but instead as yet another way to profit. Why should I, as a customer, pay any additional money per month for what is essentially a duplication of services? Both of my televisions, equipped with internal QAM tuners, receive unencrypted HD signals. The logical thing for cable providers to do is send those HD signals from all subscribed packages to customers’ televisions unencrypted. They already do this with the shitty analog version of every channel I subscribe to, I just want the digital (and HD) version in the same way. My television (and every decent TV sold in recent years) supports this and it would remove a huge burden from the cable companies. They would no longer have to supply clunky Motorola cable boxes to receive the signal. Things could go back to a simple plug and play format -- the way they were meant to be. Even new TVs still have a co-ax input so it’s a logical process.
And if Mediacom -- and other cable providers -- would just loosen the reigns a bit they’d have happier customers instead of angry people like me who just want to watch some Minnesota Wild playoff games in full widescreen high definition.
Fast forward about a decade and I actually own two HD sets. But I still only receive a handful of channels -- mainly the local Twin Cities signals - in High-Def. This is one part my own frugality (I refuse to pay an additional $7.95/month for a box from Mediacom which forces me to use their shitty remote and make room for a clunky, ass-ugly box) and another part the fault of the companies broadcasting the very content we watch. The first local affiliate I received was KARE-11. KSTP, FOX 9 and WCCO followed within a year but then things stopped. It took another year of so before Mediacom Cable started re-transmitting High-Def signals for KPXM (Ion) and WFTC just arrived on my TVs a few months ago along with WGN. I’m still holding out for KSTC (45) and that’s where the story really begins.
KSTC-45 has the rights to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota State High School League playoff games and the Minnesota Wild. While I haven’t caught either an NBA or NHL game on KSTC I did pass by and watch a few seconds of a high school hockey state playoff game last night. To put it bluntly it looked like shit.
The picture was best described as muddy and grainy, the audio sounded like it was first being passed through a bucket of thick Mississippi River mud and I could barely read the scores in the graphics bar at the top of the screen. And to top it all off, it was still being broadcast in standard definition (the old not-widescreen 4:3 aspect ratio).
Why, in 2011, are any sports being shown not in full widescreen high definition? I am not sure if this is an issue with the broadcast equipment being used by the folks producing the high school games for KSTC or if the fault lies with KSTC themselves.
I do know that a huge amount of responsibility lies with Mediacom, my cable television provider, for not granting its customers access to the last broadcast television station in the Twin Cities not available in high definition. The other gripe about the lack of high definition broadcasts lies, again, with cable providers. They are viewing the advent of high definition not as a way to provide a better experience to their viewers but instead as yet another way to profit. Why should I, as a customer, pay any additional money per month for what is essentially a duplication of services? Both of my televisions, equipped with internal QAM tuners, receive unencrypted HD signals. The logical thing for cable providers to do is send those HD signals from all subscribed packages to customers’ televisions unencrypted. They already do this with the shitty analog version of every channel I subscribe to, I just want the digital (and HD) version in the same way. My television (and every decent TV sold in recent years) supports this and it would remove a huge burden from the cable companies. They would no longer have to supply clunky Motorola cable boxes to receive the signal. Things could go back to a simple plug and play format -- the way they were meant to be. Even new TVs still have a co-ax input so it’s a logical process.
And if Mediacom -- and other cable providers -- would just loosen the reigns a bit they’d have happier customers instead of angry people like me who just want to watch some Minnesota Wild playoff games in full widescreen high definition.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
How big is hockey now?
If you're a hockey fan - even in Minnesota - watching the games on TV is nothing short of frustrating. I'll admit to not being much of a sports guy but I've loved hockey since the Minnesota Wild began playing a decade ago. I was pretty much too young to care much about the Minnesota Northstars during their existence but I do remember them leaving for Dallas and wondering why it happened. But at that point I had never seen an NHL game on TV. I grew up out on the farm - we didn't have cable or satellite so if it wasn't on the big three networks or PBS I didn't have the opportunity to see it.
Thus began my long disconnect from the NHL. I think that the sport's major regional likings have definitely contributed to its lack of national popularity. Think about it, you can't really play a quick pickup hockey game. You need certain things like a sheet of ice, sticks, skates, a puck and if you're serious about it pads and a helmet. It can get spendy in a hurry. Baseball requires little more than an open park, a bat and a ball. Sure, a mitt is handy but even with that addition a kid can get by with about 30 dollars of cash outlay. Football is even cheaper because all you truly need is the ball - about ten bucks and you're set.
Hockey is expensive. How many cities have indoor rinks? How easy is it to get some time on that ice? Yeah, the more popular hockey gets, the tougher it is to gain entrance in to the sport. Sure, you could play hockey outdoors but even in Minnesota our outdoor ice lasts about 3 months before it turns to slush and becomes unskateable. But this year's Olympics may have begun changing people's attitude towards hockey.
The gold medal game, featuring the second USA vs. Canada matchup of the games, pulled in the best ratings in 30 years. Yes, the best TV ratings since the 1980 Miracle on Ice team at Lake Placid, NY. Minneapolis was the fourth highest market in the gold medal game ratings:
1. Buffalo, 32.6/51
2. Pittsburgh, 31.9/50
3. Detroit, 26.9/47
4. Minneapolis, 26.4/53
5. Milwaukee, 24.5/43
6. Boston, 24.1/46
7. Chicago, 23.5/41
8. Columbus, 22.3/37
9. Denver, 22.2/42
10. Philadelphia, 20.9/35
The cities listed - outside of Milwaukee - are all NHL strongholds but some of the others in the top 25 markets aren't. Maybe those folks will carry over their Olympic hockey fandom to the NHL. NBC, after all, has a Sunday game of the week so hockey on a major network does exist. The Olympic hockey I saw on Sunday was exciting. It was fast paced and the action was all over the ice. If that type of play carries over tot he NHL, fans could very well follow. Plus, seeing the game in high-def makes watching it far easier.
Now that you're well-versed in hockey's popularity on TV, check out MinnPics for photos which are easier to digest than words.
Thus began my long disconnect from the NHL. I think that the sport's major regional likings have definitely contributed to its lack of national popularity. Think about it, you can't really play a quick pickup hockey game. You need certain things like a sheet of ice, sticks, skates, a puck and if you're serious about it pads and a helmet. It can get spendy in a hurry. Baseball requires little more than an open park, a bat and a ball. Sure, a mitt is handy but even with that addition a kid can get by with about 30 dollars of cash outlay. Football is even cheaper because all you truly need is the ball - about ten bucks and you're set.
Hockey is expensive. How many cities have indoor rinks? How easy is it to get some time on that ice? Yeah, the more popular hockey gets, the tougher it is to gain entrance in to the sport. Sure, you could play hockey outdoors but even in Minnesota our outdoor ice lasts about 3 months before it turns to slush and becomes unskateable. But this year's Olympics may have begun changing people's attitude towards hockey.
The gold medal game, featuring the second USA vs. Canada matchup of the games, pulled in the best ratings in 30 years. Yes, the best TV ratings since the 1980 Miracle on Ice team at Lake Placid, NY. Minneapolis was the fourth highest market in the gold medal game ratings:
1. Buffalo, 32.6/51
2. Pittsburgh, 31.9/50
3. Detroit, 26.9/47
4. Minneapolis, 26.4/53
5. Milwaukee, 24.5/43
6. Boston, 24.1/46
7. Chicago, 23.5/41
8. Columbus, 22.3/37
9. Denver, 22.2/42
10. Philadelphia, 20.9/35
The cities listed - outside of Milwaukee - are all NHL strongholds but some of the others in the top 25 markets aren't. Maybe those folks will carry over their Olympic hockey fandom to the NHL. NBC, after all, has a Sunday game of the week so hockey on a major network does exist. The Olympic hockey I saw on Sunday was exciting. It was fast paced and the action was all over the ice. If that type of play carries over tot he NHL, fans could very well follow. Plus, seeing the game in high-def makes watching it far easier.
Now that you're well-versed in hockey's popularity on TV, check out MinnPics for photos which are easier to digest than words.
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