January 24th, 2007

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Sports, Television
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Legal TV on the Web Looks Pretty Good

The other day Julie was rewatching one of the pairs performances from this year’s Canadian figure skating championships. She was watching it on TSN.ca, which has recently started serving a lot of highlights and live events via their website.

Over the past three months, it seems to me that most television channels and networks have started providing simultaneous (or shortly thereafter) shows via the Web. It’s only natural, but I’ve been impressed by the explosion of interest and the speed of their implementation.

And I’m also impressed by TSN’s quality. It’s way better than YouTube. It’s obviously not HDTV or anything, but I could stand watching a hockey game or TV show at this resolution and clarity.

Check out this free skate by Dube and Davison (requires Windows Media Player, I think, but on the upside, I can actually link to individual items), as an example. It’s a lovely program, and features a pretty great instrumental version of Damien Rice’s gorgeous “The Blower’s Daughter” (I’d be remiss not to link to Julie’s skating blog discussing this performance).

This is encouraging, as it’s likely I’ll be in Malta during the Stanley Cup playoffs. In the unlikely event that the Canucks–dare I say it–make the playoffs, I’ll be able to watch the games. I’m pretty sure I can count the Maltese hockey fans on one hand.

Comments: 4 Responses so far

DaveO
January 24th, 2007
1:57 pm

When you are in Malta, I’ll be sure to do extra tasty Canucks Outsider episodes to bring you the atmosphere of Canucks Playoff Hockey!!!

I was in Japan during the 94 Stanley Cup run (yes kids that was before ‘regular folks’ could use the Internet) so i know how it feels to be in hockey isolation.

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Ami
January 24th, 2007
8:27 pm

So how will you watch the games in Malta? They don’t seem to all be on the PC version you’ve talked about before. Are you counting on them streaming the games or do you know some other workaround?

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darren
January 24th, 2007
10:43 pm

Ami: Well, I suppose there’s an outside shot that the CBC and TSN will stream NHL playoff games live. There are also two fallback positions–this dodgy TVU Player thing, or Google Video, which hosts the games the following day.

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Jacques René Zammit
January 25th, 2007
2:00 am

Hockey and Malta:

You would (probably) be (almost) right about hockey fans in Malta. The saving factor would be the return emigrees… Gozo is full of them. People who went to Canada in the 70s to earn some cash and have now returned to the island. Their offspring still retain a love for sports which are not so popular in Europe – an example of this is the Baseball league (Gozo has a team of its own).

Many houses in Gozitan villages, built in the trademark limestone, have out-of-this world names that bear witness to the flood of returnees in the early nineties. “God Bless Canada”, “God Bless Australia” and God Bless America” are popular names for houses built with the blood and sweat of expats sending in bucketloads of dollars.

So. As for your Stanley Cup doubts it will only take asking a few questions here and there and before you know it you could be sitting infront of a SAT TV transmission watching your favourite game with sticks. And I ain’t talking quidditch.

P.S. There WAS one ice rink in Malta around four or five years ago. During its brief appearance an attempt was also made to kick off a hockey league. Unsurprisingly neither the sport, nor the idea of going into a room in freezing temperatures while you could very well be on a beach, caught on. Which is in a way understandable… I mean… have you ever heard of the Alaskan Waterpolo team?

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