ESPN America sucks

Okay, so we didn't get to see the Winter Classic live; that isn't their fault, as the game had to be rescheduled because it was held in a Mickey Mouse town. What is their fault is that when they eventually broadcast it on Sunday evening, the picture and sound quality in the third period was so bad that we barely saw two minutes of the first half. It wasn't even a live broadcast. This kind of stuff is inexcusable, considering that we pay money to get that channel.

Overall, the quality of service you get from ESPN America is pretty abysmal. I especially like the unannounced last-minute changes in programming, most usually from hockey to something riveting like college basketball. Not that you can go online to find out what's on, either, because their online TV schedule only works properly on Internet Explorer. On Opera, you can't tell when anything is actually on, because as you scroll down the program listing, the time bar moves with it. Picture and sound quality in the broadcasts are regularly poor, if not downright bad with the signal breaking up or just disappearing. That is, when you get a broadcast at all. Special thanks for two weeks of nearly uninterrupted FSN Pittsburgh games, too.

If there was any other affordable way to get NHL broadcasts on TV, I think I'd take it. The problem is that there are a couple of other channels in Finland that offer live NHL games, but they always ditch the original commentary and intermissions in favor of a Finnish-language play-by-play. I've yet to hear one that isn't totally inept. So because there seems to be no other choice, we're forced to stick with ESPN America. We wish we didn't have to, because it really does suck.