Ottawa Senators have 43 games broadcast nationally for 2010-11

Ian Mendes tweeted a while back that 40 games would be on the regular Sportsnet East this season, with this new beast Sportsnet ONE picking up the remainder (which would be as many as 15).

Add up the numbers and you’ll get to more than 82, and that’s because, again, of the language situation. All of the Sens games are expected on TV in English this year, with some double-up broadcasts, as you note, in French on RDS and RIS.

Note, though, that Sportsnet ONE isn’t yet available through any provider other than Rogers (and even then it’s only available on digital cable, not analog). So if Bell, Shaw and other cable companies don’t work out a deal with Rogers to carry the station, then people without Rogers might have to go to a friend’s place or a bar to catch the game. My understanding is that even Centre Ice won’t make the games available to people without ONE.

Here’s Rogers’ press release about the situation from a few weeks back: http://www.channelcanada.com/Article4872.html

CBC is airing every Saturday Sens game on the schedule this season. In past years (maybe even last year if I remember right?) there were one or two Saturday Senators games that CBC simply didn’t air either regionally or nationally, and because CBC has Saturday night exclusivity in Canada, it meant that no other network was able to pick them up, so fans were totally shut out of those games.

Not this year. Good move by the Ceeb. Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver all have one Saturday game each this season that CBC isn’t showing, although they are all afternoon games, and I’m not sure whether CBC’s exclusivity window only starts at 7pm or if it starts earlier.

Ok.
/is a sports media geek

Center Ice was a huge waste of money for us last year. Any games on CBC Ottawa or Sportsnet East were considered “national broadcasts” and therefore not available on Center Ice. We already had access to TSN, TSN2, and the occasional game on Sportsnet, so the extra money spent on Center Ice got us Maybe a dozen extra games all season. Outside of hockey we really don’t watch a lot of tv, so paying for timeshifting just to get the eastern channels on TOP of Center Ice fees was just a little much.

So since we spent most of the year watching online feeds anyway, we thought maybe we’d give the “legal” alternative a try this year. Anyone have any experience with Game Center? Mostly I want to know if their schedule is the same as Center Ice…. no way am I paying for a service that STILL won’t let me watch games that I know are being broadcast.

NHL media policy makes me sad :(

First and foremost, I want to be able to see as many Sens games as I can… I kind of have no life like that. :( Basically, if the Sens are playing and there are cameras in the building, I usually wanna watch it.

After that I watch other games/teams as the mood strikes – which is frequently, but I find that the general offerings on my basic cable (TSN/TSN2/CBC/Sportsnet West) are enough to satisfy my “other hockey” needs.

Too many times last season I found myself not able to watch Sens games – not once did I find myself fuming “gee, I can’t believe I’m missing Florida v Atlanta!” – such were the great offerings on Centre Ice :)

I watched tonnes of Sens games last year using http://atdhe.net/

I find ironically that since I canceled cable I actually watched more sports and actually watched what I wanted to see. I watched almost every 49ers game last year, whereas I was previously at the whim of whatever game CTV or TSN decided to show.