Woohoooo.. I cant wait, another year of 40 + games a week...... man, CI must be raking in the cash, its getting more popular year after year.

Posted by PuckHound61 from Speckville USA on 09/17/07 at 01:53 PM ET

the online is such a ripoff, the TV is actually cheaper I believe, at least you can get half off, but ideally it should be like 80 a year regular is the MLB package 150? and isnt there a whole lot more games for MLB? ill stay away from the online option, but i guess its a good option for those that dont have the TV option. good luck.

Posted by Johne from Dallas, TX on 09/17/07 at 01:58 PM ET

Given my recent move to Blackhawks-Town I’m almost certainly going to get this. Probably won’t buy until nearer to the regular season though.

Posted by Pete K from Chicago, IL on 09/17/07 at 02:18 PM ET

Last year my “early bird” subscription to Center Ice on cable was $149… I don’t recall what the regular price was for the birds that were merely on time.

I watch most games at home on a bigger screen than my monitor so the cable package is the way to go for me.  An extra $75 for the discounted online package is too damn much to pay… though I just might do it anyway because I’m fiscally irresponsible and I probably don’t spend nearly as much on cheddar as the Chief.

I did sign up for the free trial package though, and somewhere along the line I saw that a single-day subscription will be available.  That might suit me better just for the times I’m out of town… don’t know the price, though.

Posted by BobTheZee on 09/17/07 at 04:26 PM ET

Oh, and BTW the Wings vs. Wild game tomorrow (8 PM EDT) is listed as one of the 4 games available.

Posted by BobTheZee on 09/17/07 at 04:29 PM ET

Crap form does not work with my Canadian address. Racists.

Posted by doug on 09/17/07 at 05:24 PM ET

Well, so far the best thing about Center Ice on nhl.tv is that it’s free, because it ain’t working.

Lots of “The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy” from Firefox, or the equivalent from IE.  The one time I was actually able to get in and clicked on the game, I got an audio response, something about the URL being used to access the content was incorrect.  I’m not sure of the message, though, because the accent was difficult for me to understand — for all I know it may have actually someone from Tuvalu.

Posted by BobTheZee on 09/17/07 at 06:34 PM ET

I watched the NYI vs ATL game last night…

Not impressed.  Not in the least.  Audio only came out of the left channel, couldn’t get full screen to work, the quality left a LOT to be desired.  The picture quality was like YouTube.  Looked horrible when I plugged it into my LCD TV and “zoomed in” for full screen (they don’t actually support full screen - they rely on the Windows Media player to do its own full screen, which doesn’t work correctly on a Mac).  Also, the free NHL.tv clips videos (highlights from the last playoffs) looked MUCH better than the actual games from Center Ice Online, and supported true full screen.

Also, the Ducks/Canucks game was “blacked out” for some reason.  And I live in Maryland.  I wanted to see another game just to make sure that the first game’s problems were related to the crappy feed from North Bay, Ontario (their local coverage made local UP channels look like national broadcasts).  I’m hoping the audio was due to the original broadcast and not the Center Ice Online.

Not worth $150 based on what I saw.  I don’t know if I’d even pay $75.  The TV deal is, what, the same price as this?  And its quality is quite a bit better.  This was choppy due to the internet lag, the audio and video were terrible, and you’d be lucky if you got even two games to play at one time.  I would say this is worth $50, total.  Hopefully the rest of the “preview” shows a lot better quality, so I’m waiting until the actual season starts to see if it really is worth it.

Posted by BuzzFledderjohn on 09/18/07 at 09:32 AM ET

I watched the NYI vs ATL game last night…

Hmmm, so how come it didn’t work for me, I wonder.  I never got it to work… all I got, repeatedly, was the same recorded schmuck telling me the URL was invalid.

Also, the Ducks/Canucks game was “blacked out” for some reason.  And I live in Maryland.

Blacked out for me, too… I live in the UP.  With Center Ice on cable, I’ve never had a game blacked out.  I sent an email to their tech support about this… no reply (yet).

their local coverage made local UP channels look like national broadcasts

So I missed the one opportunity to actually feel proud of UP local television???  Darn.

Posted by BobTheZee on 09/18/07 at 12:45 PM ET

Center Ice Online is NFG so far tonight, too.  A few “server not responding” but mostly I can get in to the Center Ice page… but am unable to log in.  Trying to access my account info to force a login returns — I’m not making this up — “This feature requires you to be logged in, however login is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.” Grrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!

Posted by BobTheZee on 09/18/07 at 06:25 PM ET