I’m glad the NHL is back. I’m glad that I get to watch some games in HD. But it’s more than a little disconcerting to see commercials for hunting shows and other so called “field sports” during breaks in the action.

I’m not sure that having the NHL on the same station as “Wanted: Ted or Alive” is really helping the sports image.

It warms my heart that Toronto and St. Louis both won tonight. That means the only team without a win in the NHL at the end of the first week is the Penguins. I can hear John groaning as I type. And Pittsburg doesn’t play again until Saturday, so I can run smack at him all week.

So Day One of the 2005-06 NHL season is in the books. Good for the Caps, bad for the Kings. Really bad for the Penguins, but I hate the Penguins so that’s cool. And I was pleasantly surprised to discover that OLN was broadcasting the Rangers/Flyers game in HD on INHD. They have an HDTV broadcast schedule, so the need for HDNet just dropped dramatically. I will have to spring for NHL Center Ice – one night of the free preview and I’m sold. The only bummer was not getting the Caps game live – with all 30 teams in action tonight, there weren’t enough channels to carry them all live. But they won, and after eighteen months and one day since their last game that is good enough for me.

Mark Schmidt from the WWF team built a nifty little app to import the NHL hockey schedule into Outlook. So I went to import the Caps schedule, only to find that the time zones don’t match up. All the game times are in east coast time and I am on the west coast. I was going to bug Mark for the code, but decided instead to change my current timezone to east coast, import the games into Outlook, and then change my timezone back. It’s a bit of a hack, but it was quicker than changing the code. Sometimes, simple is better.

Now, I just need Comcast to get HDNet.

Update: No word from Concast on getting HDNet. They hope to have more HD Channels “by the end of the year”. I found a petition online asking for HDNet on Comcast and a blog entry from Mark Cuban (co-owner of HDNet) that compares HDNet vs. InHD to “David vs. Goliath”. InHD is owned in part, I think, by Comcast. However, Comcast now owns the broadcast rights to the NHL via their OLN network. So I’m hoping we’ll eventually see HD NHL on Comcast, thought it sounds like I have to wait a few months. 😦

From NHL.com:

NHL, NHLPA reach agreement in principle on new CBA

NEW YORK/TORONTO (July 13, 2005) – The National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players’ Association have reached an agreement in principle on the terms of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Details of the new Agreement will not be made available publicly pending the formal ratification process by the NHLPA Members and the NHL Board of Governors.

It is anticipated that the ratification process will be completed next week, at which time the parties will be prepared to discuss the details of the Agreement and plans for next season. No further comment will be made until then.

Game On!

Update: Obviously, the NHL has to do ALOT to recover from missing last season. Apparently, HDTV is one of the things they are thinking about:

The NHL, which claims that hockey fans are the most technologically savvy of all pro sports fans, will focus a portion of its marketing energies on the cyber world. It will also work to improve the at-home experience for an ever-waning television audience, employing new camera angles, microphones on players and coaches and the use of high definition television production.

“The opportunities that exist for us with high definition television are enormous,” [NHL Group VP of Communications Bernadette] Mansur said.

[Scott Burnside, ESPN.com, NHL Marketing Challenges Lie Ahead]

I’m hard pressed to say that getting HDTV would make the lockout “worth it” but it sure would lessen the sting.