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Wow. That's all I can say about yesterday's gold medal hockey game between Canada and the US. Wow...what a game. It was one for the ages. It was almost a great disappointment for this Canadian. I have spent the entire Olympics frustrated about the television coverage here in Mexico.
The frustration started on the day I discovered by accident that we actually had Olympic coverage on channel 22 in Mexico City. The TV guide had no mention of the games. I just happened to be channel surfing when I came across the downhill race in progress. Imagine my excitement as a Canadian knowing Manuel Osborne-Paradis had a great chance for a gold medal and was still to come. I was on the edge of my seat. The moment came...Osborne-Paradis was in the starting gate. Beep...beep...beep and he was off. As he made his first turn at the top of the downhill course the TV station went to a commercial break. I sat there stunned. Why would you go to a commercial in the middle of a race? To make matters worse after the commercial break the coverage went to the women's quarter final snowboarding cross race. What the hell happened to the downhill? Who won? How did the Canadians do? I was stunned. They never went back to the downhill race nor did they mention the final results. I had to go to the Internet and Google the results.
As I mentioned in an earlier article there was no live video or radio Internet access to the games from Mexico so we were stuck with the coverage provided locally. This past Saturday's coverage was no better than the day I watched the downhill. I sat there watching the women's 30k cross country race. It was the last women's event and there was a great Canadian athlete in the race. Sarah Renner wasn't favoured in the race but she had been a tremendous athlete for Canada over the years and this was to be her last race prior to retiring. She finished 16th. Great coverage of that event. The next event was the men's giant slalom snowboarding race for gold. I was excited about this event too as there was a Canadian competing for gold. We watched the semifinals as the Canadian, JJ Anderson, won his heats and made it to the final. The best combined time wins each heat. The racers go head to head on a dual course. They do one run on each course and the best combined time wins. The first run of the gold medal race takes place and JJ Anderson is .76 seconds behind. Now we have to hope he has a much better run on the other course so his combined time will be good enough for gold. As we are waiting for the second run the TV station goes to a commercial break. When they return to the coverage they are showing a non-medal speed skating race between Norway and the Netherlands. I thought they were going to perhaps show the Canada/US gold medal speed skating race while we were waiting for the second snowboarding run for gold....nope...not to be. Not only did they not show the second run for gold in the snowboard giant slalom they didn't show the Canada/US gold medal race nor did they show any of the curling gold medal match. Unbelievable. The worst coverage of an Olympics in the history of television coverage.
I have to say as a Canadian I was incredibly apprehensive about how the gold medal hockey game was going to be covered. Was it going to be shown in its entirety? Would channel 22 show one period and then go to something else? Would they only show intermittent coverage? To give you an idea of how important this game is to Canadians imagine Mexico making it to the final game in the World Cup in South Africa. That is how important the game is to Canadians. The entire country comes to a stop during the game. It is our World Cup. So I was desperate to see the game in its entirety and I was desperate to find a way to get the Canadian coverage of the game. So what to do?
I called an old high school friend in Canada. I lamented to him about the coverage here and how desperate I was to find a way to watch the game on a Canadian network as I had no confidence that we would have any coverage here. As we were talking he mentioned he just bought a webcam. He set up the camera and called me on Skype video. It seemed to work. I could see his tv and follow the hockey. The picture wasn't very good but it was better than nothing. We tested Google video for a comparison and it turned out even better. So we were set. The plan was for him to call me at 2pm our time with the web cam so I could follow the game. As it turned out channel 22 did have local coverage of the game and much to my surprise they covered it live. In fact, I watched the game on 22 and listened to the Canadian coverage of the game over the Internet on Google video. It was fantastic. The only suggestion for improvement I would pass on to the producers at channel 22 is that they have things called TV TIME OUTS...what that means is they stop play for two minutes so you can run your commercials. The idea here is that if you use the TV timeouts the viewers don't miss any of the actual game. You took your commercial break during the game play and while we were watching the commercial Canada scored the opening goal...Please...next time...use the TV time out that is provided you.
All I can say after my two weeks of frustration is that I hope that one day the IOC will see the benefit of giving all of us access to the games over the Internet. I have a model that will work for the right's holders while generating additional revenue for everyone and giving all of us access to the games in our language or country of choice. Call me. I will give you the plan for no charge as my contribution to promoting the Olympics to all people, not just the countries that can afford the coverage.
The alternative for us is to start looking for people in Sochi that have a web cams so we can get coverage of the next Olympics.
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