A Little Help for My Friends

I am a man of few needs.

I need to keep my family happy. I need to watch hockey.

Yep, that's about it. Everything else is pretty much negotiable so long as it pleases my family and can get me clear to watch the day's games on ice.

Working within those boundaries, I am pretty excited about how much hockey I can watch on so many different devices. Last night, the Devils-Flyers game was going long, so the start of the Kings-Blues game was going to be joined in progress rather than shown in full.

That led me to grabbing my iPhone and using the league app to get the Kings radio feed. I used my iPad to display the almost real-time flow of stats on said game (my laptop was in use to keep a steady flow of real-time stats on the Devildogs game).

I'm certain I would have liked watching the Kings open the scoring last night, but Nick Nixon's call was fine. The game in Newark did not last all night and I would soon be watching the Kings-Blues on the Lounge big screen.

As you can see, the Lounge can take care of my needs. But I feel for those hockey fans in other areas. Jeff Hale, who has taken a few shifts behind the bar here in the Lounge, made a recent trip to Boston and could not get the Capitals-Rangers overtime drama at his hotel. No NBC Sports Channel/Versus/OLN in that particular lineup.

And there are fans in Cleveland who will not be able to see the start of the Kings-Blues game on Sunday because of baseball.

Hard times in certain precincts, to be certain. Jeff's problem, if I may offer an opinion, could have been solved with a Slingbox, which I think can cover all sorts of television emergencies on the road. (Or he could have solved it by getting out of that bush league town of Boston; bars there close real early. I rest my case.) I remember once reading a Tweet in real-time from the sports agent Allan Walsh as he was bemoaning the absence of Versus at his hotel.

Now some people might not want to hit the road with a Slingbox, the way some parents might want to scratch the trouble-making child of their litter from their travel party. But if you are a sports agent -- I mean, it's your business -- then a Slingbox has to be considered one of the first things on the to be packed list.

In 2010, trapped in a hotel room without hockey, again in Boston, I worked my laptop until I found a stream of a Memorial Cup game. It may not have been a good night for the Brandon Wheat Kings against the Windsor Spitfires, but I and my collection of chilled Guinness pints had a pleasant evening. (Room service is good, but being in a room a short walk away from the hotel bar is great.)

The best solution is for the NHL to work with their rights holders to provide live streams available to all who pay for an app, for example. A few months back, NBC the mothership broadcast one game and offered a Web stream of a game it was showing in another part of the country. The reception was far from HD, but I am of an age where I can remember when getting a few pixels on a battered black-and-white TV to resemble SMU's Jerry LeVias, running every which way to snare passes against Oklahoma in the 1968 Bluebonnet Bowl, was a thrill to this child in single digits. (Hate the Sooners. Always will.) Another solution is for NBC the mothership to strong arm those hotel cable package providers to squeeze NBC Sports Channel into the mix. Hey, Comcast, don't you and your friends have any pull in this arena? Come on.

So how about it NHL, NBC, NBC Sports Channel, CNBC and NHL Network? How about a little love for my friends? As for me, I am fine right now. But if I need something, I'll let you know. Count on it.