The good ol' hockey game

Fuck you Rogers. And the NHL can shove it too while we are at it. The bullshit anti-competition and collusion in this country is making me so depressed. It is permeating everything, and at the end of the day it is the people who get screwed and ignored, chasing the almighty extra buck. FUCK. Losing the HNIC theme song was one thing, but goddamit. Argh, I am so pissed at this, and the fact that it just came out of the blue. And once/if broadcast television becomes obsolete, it is going to be even worse.

 

I am not sure that anyone outside of us might even care, but let me try to break this down for people looking from the outside in.

Imagine two large telecommunications giants in the US, say AT&T and Verizon (there is a third smaller player to be precise, but bear with me). Now picture that these two companies control nearly all of the teleinformation networks in the country. Say they have they own entire families of television channels, which they use to naturally support each of their other properties. These are bundled together without choice to the consumer to maximise their exposure. Being their core central business, these two companies completely dominate the phone industry, and as cell suppliers have more and more control over the consumer in the current era. They also manage to own the majority of larger radio stations in the US. On top of this, the companies are the owners of the primary newspaper publishing on a national level. Each of these business arms necessarily is very profitable due to the lack of any serious competition, and all the the revenue from each goes to support the other arms of the empire.

Now, imagine that, in addition to controlling all of the content that is made available to the American consumer, they also are responsible for the means to give you said content. In this world, AT&T and Verizon supply all of the cable, internet, and satellite providers, to pass information along to you, the average consumer. Furthermore, they have ownership over the physical network that any telecom company needs in order to compete or provide a similar service to Americans. Thus, they can dictate how much and at what level you have access.

Okay, now in due course one of these two companies purchases the sole exclusive rights to broadcast any NFL games, and all associated NFL content-related programming. And picture, if you will, a government broadcaster being made a subcontractor of AT&T. Add on a toothless 'regulatory agency' meant to provide oversight and protect the public interest that is operated by ex-members and close associates of the telecom giants. How do you think that is going to effect what information is ultimately available at the endpoint of delivery? They control the means of manufacture, delivery, content, supply, and message. If this seems like some kind of Orwellian dystopic vision, you would not be far off the mark.

I am sorry to draw the analogy, but if it came to football, American viewers would not stand for this. Any talk of the free market and competition is utter bullshit. Take a look at the collusion and monopolising practices at work here, and you will see in short notice how the system is set up as anything but. This is NOT about the market demanding something and the supply meeting the voice of the consumer based on spending. This is completely anti-capitalist and against the conservative economic policies which governments so widely tout as the high points of our respective countries. The more we move into the digital age, the more these companies are now able to control how, when, and what, exactly it is we have access to. Furthermore, they are partners in the physical media of information delivery. Are you going to tell me that they are not going to exercise control to support their own content on particular devices and limit [directly or indirectly] the availability of others?

Yes, terrible management at the CBC has to share in the blame, but that has been a long time coming now. And really, that is only symptomatic of something else with the broadcaster (a bigger issue of misdirection and public funding). This kind of blatant behaviour and finger to the Canadian public and fans of the game is just intolerable. And fuck Bettman for his running [ruining] of the NHL, in the almighty chase to squeeze every last dollar out of the business that he can. This, and all professional sports, is about entertainment, ultimately, and is not a goddamn bank. Any remarks about the fans winning this one just makes me steam.

 

Sure, I see what you are saying, but you have to consider that this deal means Rogers will own all the rights to every game. That means, whether we are watching [legally or otherwise] through streaming, downloading, cable signal, or rabbit ears, it won't matter - at the end of the day Rogers is the one who gets to control the content of that signal, and is the one making all of the revenue from every NHL game. I can easily see this [eventually] moving to a PPV system, since this is their primary asset now, and they are going to have to recoup all the money for that 5.2B$. I don't plan on giving them one single dime of my own money, but that isn't what they will care about either. And look, they basically own the NHL brand now for all media outlets. As you said, coverage in the US is nearly abysmal, and what coverage there is is not making the NHL any money. They sold out whatever they had solely for more money. I can't say it enough: fuck Bettman and the BoGs.

Oh, and I sure hope their token gesture of allowing some games to stay on the CBC Saturdays is not fooling anyone. They know there would be an uproar if this went away starting next season - we are taking about 60 years of history here! - and is only meant to temporarily appease the public, which I hope it won't but probably won't change a single thing anyways, but they are still making all of the money off of those broadcasts - i.e. they get to use the public signal as their own broadcast service, in addition to their own.

 

I agree. The entire season schedule, for all of the teams, has been a real travesty. Whoever was in charge of that definitely needs to be fired. But especially for anything like the Habs-Bruins match-ups, it is no question that that is what fans of both want to see. I don't really care if I get to see them play LA, Columbus, Nashville, etc. more.

First things first though, we need to take out the Laffs tonight.

 

That was a bit of an odd one, but obviously I happy with the outcome. Even if it wasn't us winning, anything that takes the self-centred Leafs fans back down to reality I will count as a step forward. Considering if you remove 22 seconds from that game, we would have had it 4-0, I will definitely take it.

 

So in another classic example of how ridiculous this season's schedule has been, the Habs are meeting the Devils for a home-and-home match up in 48 hours. Come on, the same team twice in a row, and in three days, when we can't even play the goddamn Bruins? (we all want to see that happen). Hopefully Budaj stands up tonight, and it does not go to a SO.

 

Don't you mean Slew-ban?

Hoping for a good game tonight. I am surprised we actually won in a SO for once, but in any case hope the boys are not too tired to give the Bruins a good run.

Just tuning in, not sure what happened there, but hopefully Boychuk is all right. Seems like it wasn't intentional, and he didn't go head first, but you never like to see that kind of thing where someone gets injured.

 

Saw a (albeit spotty streaming) replay, and the hit didn't seem dirty, from behind or even really that hard, but I think he was just in awkward positioning, and Patches took out his legs inadvertently when they went down. He was responsive and seemed to be in some pain, so I just hope he's okay and gets some good precautionary review at the hospital. Very unfortunate to lose a D-man, and any serious injury is something I would rather not see.