Center Ice Out, GameCenter Live In

Many cable providers do not assign the NHL Center Ice package to HD-capable channels. I know my provider does not.

This usually leaves me with two choices. One is to get drunk enough to not mind the fuzzy images on my HD screens. It's sort of a fun option, but highly unproductive.

The second is to adjust the picture to fill out the HD screen, rendering even the thinnest player as worthy of the nickname Gump. A lot of rotund looking players is the result of this option.

This season, I am going with GameCenter Live, which will allow me to watch out-of-market HD-quality feeds on my iPad2, iPhone5, Roku box (2XS), and Macbook. That leaves the Lounge's main HD screens available for the three locals (Rangers, Islanders and Devils) and the games on NBC, the NBC Sports Channel or the NHL Network channel.

(Not to mention the various AHL, college, junior and high school games I get via cable. OK, so I mentioned them. You knew that I would.)

My Macbook laptop will get the call on opening day, as NBC Sports will stream the Kings-Blackhawks game in the Northeast (Penguins-Flyers will be shown on traditional TV in this region). For those outside the Northeast who want to see the Pens-Flyers game, the NBC Sports website is your source for the game.

And the new Roku box will be the real rookie of the year in my house. Great thing about it is that it is portable and can be moved to any TV with an HDMI port.

Time to rest my eyes a bit. There will be a lot of action in the Lounge tonight. As a warm-up, the big HD screen in the Lounge will have Duluth East against White Bear Lake in a Minnesota high school boys hockey matchup starting at 8:30 Eastern on the Fox College Sports Central channel. The small screen will have the NHL Network's latest division preview, which is on at 7 Eastern and will be replayed at 10 Eastern.

And we are reading season previews from TSN.ca, SI.com, ESPN.com, USAToday.com, NHL.com, The Hockey News and Hockey Prospectus. The Lounge reading circle should be done in time for the opening faceoff Saturday.

Now, like I said, I must get a little shut eye before tonight's action. Thanks for dropping in.

Why the CBC Matters to Hockey

It's called production, and the CBC does the best job around, even when it has more that a few goofs working as talking heads between periods on Hockey Night in Canada.

The level of production is high, and you are amazed when you see what the CBC does when you put it alongside the work of NBC and NBC Sports Channel. And I am a firm believer that the NBC/NBC Sports Channel arrangement is far better place for the NHL than ESPN, SportsChannel America or Fox.

But when the little things matter, the CBC gets the job right. The Stanley Cup finals end, and the CBC stays until the first blood alcohol tests from the winning locker room signal a need for designated drivers.

With NBC, Doc Emrick has barely moved the final vowel from "OH NOOOOOOOOOOOH!" before he turns quiet and says with some note of apology that we can get the rest of the story by switching from NBC to NBC Sports Channel. And on the NBC Sports Channel, we get 30 minutes before it's time to switch to the NHL Network.

Weak.

Strong? The CBC. And here is just a small sampling. It's called setting the stage, and HNIC crew has done a fine job (we've agreed to forget about Ron MacLean's first responder poetry slam).

Here, in a string of six, are the opening segments to the six games of the Stanley Cup Finals, along with the salute to the playoffs.

Do you remember what NBC/NBC Sports Channel did for each game? Neither do I anymore.

Enjoy.

GAME 1



GAME 2



GAME 3



GAME 4



GAME 5



GAME 6



CLOSING SALUTE TO PLAYOFFS



CLOSING CREDITS

Program Alert for Tonight

Depending, I guess, on whether the Nashville-Phoenix game ends on time or not to far along into overtime, the NBC Sports Channel is scheduled to show the USA-France game that was played earlier today over in Europe on the opening day of the World Championships.

The broadcast is set for 11:30 Eastern. The Americans opened the tournament, which will determine the seeding of teams for the 2014 Olympics on Sochi, Russia, with a 7-2 victory. A recap is here. In other games, Canada defeated Slovakia, 3-2, and Finland outlasted Belarus, 1-0. The Germans were 3-0 winners over Italy and the Czechs came away with a 2-0 victory over Denmark. And Sweden defeated Norway, 3-1.

To follow all the action at the World Championships, which are being played in Helsinki and Stockhoml thorugh May 20, drop in here at the Lounge and also check out the IIHF site for the event.

On Saturday night, the NBC Sports Channel will have the Canada-USA game on at 7:30 Eastern, followed by the documentary "Cold War on Ice: Summit Series 72" at 10 pm.

Plenty of hockey in the Lounge this weekend. Games tonight. On Saturday, games in the afternoon and at night, along with the Kentucky Derby ... and there will be Cinco de Mayo festivities in the Lounge. (Should the Rangers game run into a couple of overtime sessions and into the Kentucky Derby time slot, NBC has this plan, according to Puck Daddy.) I'm working the kitchen and am planning to serve both chicken and blackened mushroom soft tacos along with house-made guacamole, chips, beans, rice. The beer will be very cold and the margaritas -- against my wishes -- will be frozen. But as per my wishes, they will be strong enough to make you wish you had portable hard drive for your brain on Sunday morning.

Sunday will include a little built-in recovery time before the St. Louis-Los Angeles game begins at 3 Eastern. And we should be feeling even better by the time the New Jersey-Philadelphia game begins at 7:30 Eastern.

The Lounge will be jumping. If you are in the area, please wander in.

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.