Thanks Paul!  It is a shame when the fans work harder than the league to get this fixed.  At least there won’t be a conflict with the Kentucky Derby pre-race show tomorrow!

If they can’t get the game from Montreal in HD tomorrow night we might as well switch back to radio.  (Except for you folks lucky enough to get CBC in HD along the border!)

Posted by BK from Ohio on 05/02/08 at 09:58 PM ET

Haha, I like the jab about the free publicity.

Posted by rinkrat on 05/02/08 at 10:35 PM ET

to defend vs., its hard to move the hd stuff from new york to san jose since the hd feed is going to be heading up to montreal. they probably figured that series was over in first place.

HD is expensive to produce

There is zero reason why this game should be in hd. vs should just picked up tsn feed and their hd feed.

if i ran the league, i would made it a league mandate to broadcast everygame in hd.

it’s kinda sad flyers can send hd truck up to montreal for tomorrow’s game and vs. cant.

Posted by FlyersFan on 05/02/08 at 11:04 PM ET

talk about sick tv ratings

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/homepage/20080502_Comcast_s_regional_sports_networks_chalking_up_wins.html

On Wednesday night, about 250,000 TV households in the Philadelphia region tuned in the Flyers-Canadiens playoff game, making it the most-watched show in the market that evening until CBS’s Criminal Minds and Fox’s American Idol knocked it to third place.

When the Capitals and the Flyers met in the first round of the playoffs, a combined 350,000 households in Philadelphia and Washington watched the games. This was similar to a national regular-season viewership for a hockey game, a Comcast official said.

Wednesday night’s 3-2 Flyers win over the Canadiens drew an 8.3 Nielsen rating, almost the highest for the year. Game seven of the Flyers-Capitals matchup was slightly higher.

Posted by FlyersFan on 05/02/08 at 11:09 PM ET

The Directv program guide (always accurate)(rotfl!) shows the Philly vs. Montreal game as being in HD tomorrow night.  Sunday with NHLCI coverage of the Dallas-Sharks game, including HD.  The thing that really kills me is that tonight’s game is a versus exclusive, which prevents anyone else from showing it in HD.

At least it is an exciting game...5 minutes left.  Better get off this computer!!

Posted by BK from Ohio on 05/02/08 at 11:25 PM ET

I don’t care how much it costs to produce HD shows. Versus is spelled J-O-K-E.  Since HD is readily available, I expect it for all playoff games.  Especially since a huge market around Pittsburgh only picks up Versus HD.

Posted by Diddy from Pittsburgh on 05/03/08 at 08:12 AM ET

Paul - this is of little surprise as this network has continued to put as little effort into ‘getting it right’ as possible. They employ a below-par, borderline-incompetent production staff and incredibly biased commentators while giving the game enough lip service to the sport for Bettman and the Board of Governors to be happy. It’s pathetic but after the lockout, Gary and the BoG have been taking advantage of the fans’ “just happy to have NHL hockey at all” emotions to feed us garbage and raise ticket prices and merchandise costs. In the short term its good business, but in the long term hockey will continue to fall behind the other sports. 

Btw - When I got the e-mail request to promote Versus’ coverage on my Rangers blog, I wrote that “Unless there is some kind of financial compensation, I will pass. I have no desire to freely promote the poor coverage that Versus gives the sport that I love.” The reply I got? “I really thank you for your feedback. I will definitely reflect that issue to my supervisor. Have a good weekend.” Yeah, you too.

Posted by Scotty Hockey on 05/03/08 at 02:39 PM ET

SH, I know it is of little surprise but they have made strides this season.

But something like last night takes them five strides backwards.

Regarding their promotion request, I did it onec last season and never again.

I have had lengthy talks with them regarding this and their marketing leaves a lot to be desired.

Truthfully, they don’t have a clue on what they are doing.

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 05/03/08 at 02:58 PM ET

Just to throw around some numbers at FlyersFan: The Pittsburgh area had about 232,000 homes watch the Pens/Rangers game 3. And just a reminder: Pittsburgh has a much smaller population than Philly (about 5.8m to 2.35m). Soooooooo, anyhow. What was your point again?

Posted by Mitch from Erie, PA on 05/06/08 at 02:04 PM ET