The HD Corner – Sens/Pens Thoughts

Just as I was sitting down to watch game #1 between Ottawa and Pittsburgh, CBC’s HD feed caught my eye – all for the wrong reasons. Lo and behold, although the game was shown in widescreen and with 5.1 Dolby surround sound, it was in fact being shown in standard definition. Was this some kind of sick joke? Would CBC really not show its opening playoff game in true high-def? Apparently so. According to the Globe and Mail, CBC only has a limited amount of HD trucks at its disposal, and therefore opted to show the Calgary-San Jose game in true HD. The CBC only has two HD trucks; one will be used for the Calgary series, and one split in between the Ottawa and Montreal series. Once the series shifts to Ottawa, the HD truck will follow, meaning the Habs’ road games will be seen as if you were watching the game on a TV with rabbit ears and tinfoil, in your grandma’s kitchen. Instead of showing Venture or the Royal Canadian Air Farce in HD, maybe the CBC will come to realize that no one else cares about their other programming. I take that back – I actually quite enjoy a good episode of The Nature of Things from time to time.

Great work yesterday by Hughson and Garry Galley during the Sens game. Besides Hughson mixing up Meszaros with Commodore a couple of times (Meszaros wears 14 and Commodore wears 44), it was an impressive effort. More impressive than the Sens’ effort that’s forsure. I started to hyperventilate when Hughson called Commodore’s name during a Sens’ 5 on 3. If the CBC shows all the scratched and injured Sens sulking in the press box one more time I might snap. Why can’t they just show us a fat Mario Lemieux eating poutine in his private box like the good old days. I’d even take an interview with Ryan Malone’s father, talking about his son growing up in Pittsburgh and playing the role of hometown hero, than seeing another shot of Luke Richardson drinking a Bud Lite.

On a completely unrelated note, TSN revamped its entire website to correspond with the start of the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs. No word yet if Bob McKenzie put some liposuction or at least a couple botox injections on the TSN corporate account, to coincide with TSN.ca’s new look.