I have to stay with them, at least for the time being.  I have 17 months left on my contract that would be rather costly to get out of.  Other than this situation I like them a lot.  I agree with you that their HD is awesome.  Dish is worse IMO, and the only cable company we have here is Charter (the devil).  I hope they work this out soon.  I was planning on getting Center Ice anyway but this whole situation sucks.  I have contacted both Directv and Comcast and neither have been remotely helpful.  The NHL needs to get back on an actual channel but we all know that’s not happening anytime soon.  If ever.

Posted by jennyquarx on 09/08/09 at 01:19 PM ET

I’m changing nothing for the present. I’ll re-up my Center Ice because I am a hockey fan, and no other product on the market come close to it. I have Time Warner and Dish as an option, but have had them both in the past, and wasn’t a fan of either.

I may end up watching a few Wings games on the ‘puter, but life will go on. I just won’t go that route for most of my viewing , because I likes me some big screen.

Versus announcers sucked, anyway.

Posted by dougie on 09/08/09 at 01:21 PM ET

There’s really only a few games on Versus that will affect me.  The playoffs might suck?  But I have no plans to change right now.  There’s nothing on Versus that would make me change, that I can’t get with the Center Ice package and local programming (MSG, FS, etc) - but if VS has exclusive playoff games, that would hurt.

Posted by Navarath on 09/08/09 at 01:30 PM ET

Being an Avs fan living in Denver the whole VS thing doesn’t really affect me.
Avs ownership has their own channel, Altitude, that they broadcast all but two or three Avs games on.  79 games this season, and I think one of the missing ones is on NBC.
Like others, the only time I watch Vs is during the playoffs.  I’m not a big fan of national broadcasts anyway.  They very rarely play a Western Conference game and most of the time, like NBC, it’s all about Rosby… (yeah, I stole that from the 19)  I remember watching a Rangers/Flyers game, and they still talked about Rosby.
  Vs always seems to be having some technical difficulty whenever I watch hockey as well.  Whether it be the audio or video, something is always screwy.

Posted by AvsRock from My timeshare in insanity... on 09/08/09 at 02:19 PM ET

I’m with you, Paul.  I have DirecTV and have been very happy with their service for years.  They never pull the stunts large cable companies do with service (or lack thereof) to customers, at least in my experiences—which is why I switched in the first place.

If the NHL insists on staying with VS, and VS insists on this approach with DirecTV, then so be it.  I’m as hard core a hockey and Wings fan as they come, but I will not switch my service provider for a handful of games, playoff or not.  I hate the fact that we don’t get the home crew for the playoff games as it stands.

Once again, I will be ordering Center Ice.  I tend to reward innovation, including their HD line-up, and great customer service.  Maybe that’s something Versus should value in finding partners too.

Posted by snafu from Michigan on 09/08/09 at 03:07 PM ET

I ended up getting a response from Versus which I posted in the comment thread of my members blog post, essentially it claims they’re still negotiating and are happy to inform us that we can at least watch the NFL any time we want.

*sigh*

Posted by Hippy Dave from Portland by way of Detroit on 09/08/09 at 05:39 PM ET

erm not from Versus, sorry, from DirecTV

Posted by Hippy Dave from Portland by way of Detroit on 09/08/09 at 05:39 PM ET

I’m keeping DirecTV at the moment because it’s too much of a pain to switch, I like their other services and I agree the HD quality is better than Comcast. I emailed them several days ago to ask if Center Ice will pick up any of the TSN or CBC feeds for Versus-only games (like the Wings/Blues game in Sweden on Oct. 2), but they haven’t yet responded—surprise, surprise. I’ll be irritated if I miss some regular season games, but I’ll lose my mind if they don’t resolve this and I miss conference finals and Stanley Cup finals games. I also emailed the NHL to complain, but they never responded either. Ah, Bettman ... sticking it to the fans for 16 years and counting.

Posted by Bella on 09/08/09 at 07:46 PM ET