DISH Network Satellite TV Offers National Hockey League Center Ice Package

[kornkid81]

Finally DIsh Network is getting some sports:

LITTLETON, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 2, 2002-- EchoStar and its DISH Network(TM) (Nasdaq:DISH - News), a leading direct broadcast satellite television provider, is pleased to announce a multi-year agreement to offer the National Hockey League® Center Ice® -- the NHL's out-of-market television package -- to customers on DISH On Demand Pay-Per-View beginning with the NHL's season-opening action on Wednesday, Oct. 9.
NHL Center Ice offers up to 40 out-of-market regular season games each week from Oct. 9 through April 6, 2003. Select first- and second-round Stanley Cup® playoff games will also be available on NHL Center Ice.

DISH Network will offer its customers a free preview of NHL Center Ice from Oct. 9 through Oct. 15. An early bird price of just $139 for the package is available to DISH Network customers through Oct. 15. To order NHL Center Ice, call 800/333-DISH (3474). Blackouts may apply.

The NHL Center Ice package is located on channels 540 through 549 and can be ordered for $159 after Oct. 15. DISH Network customers may also subscribe to a half season package beginning Jan. 6, 2003, for $109. DISH Network customers may also choose to pay in three monthly installments.

"We're pleased to join EchoStar in a partnership that will provide DISH Network subscribers across the nation with night after night of great NHL action on NHL Center Ice," said Doug Perlman, NHL senior vice president of television and media ventures.

The National Hockey League opens its 86th regular season Wednesday, Oct. 9, with pre-game ceremonies in Raleigh, N.C., and Los Angeles plus the renewal of one of the NHL's top rivalries when the Dallas Stars visit the Colorado Avalanche. The 1,230-game schedule will conclude April 6, the earliest since the 1991-92 season ended on April 5.

NHL Center Ice features the Carolina Hurricanes raising their Southeast Division and Eastern Conference championship banners to the ceiling of the Entertainment & Sports Arena in Raleigh, N.C. Also, the Los Angeles Kings will honor the greatest scorer in NHL history, Wayne Gretzky, by retiring his No. 99 jersey prior to their game against the Phoenix Coyotes -- the team Gretzky now serves as managing partner -- at STAPLES Center.

"NHL Center Ice is the ultimate viewing experience for hockey fans," said Michael Schwimmer, senior vice president of programming at EchoStar. "No matter where they live, DISH Network's NHL Center Ice subscribers will be able to follow their favorite teams and players virtually every time they hit the ice."

DISH Network commercial customers are also eligible to offer the NHL Center Ice package to patrons. For more information, call 800/454-0843.

DISH On Demand Pay-Per-View offers premiere movies and a variety of special events, from concerts to boxing to wrestling. For more information on how to get your DISH Network satellite TV system, visit your local DISH Network retailer, www.dishnetwork.com or call 800/333-DISH (3474).

About EchoStar

DISH Network is a trademark of EchoStar Communications Corporation. DISH Network is EchoStar's state-of-the-art direct broadcast satellite TV system that is capable of offering over 500 channels of digital video and CD-quality audio programming, as well as fully MPEG-2/DVB compliant hardware and installation. EchoStar is included in the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) which contains the largest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq Stock Market. DISH Network currently serves over 7.46 million customers.

[Ryan]

Wasn't Center Ice one of the packages that lets the provider keep a lot of the subscription money?

[Mark Holtz]

Hey, i thought that Charlie didn't like sports programming. If this doesn't put a hockey puck in that argument, what does?

[Steve Mehs]

Awesome! Great to see a real sports package up on E* for a change.

--Merged threads and moviing to Dish General Forum--

[Mike123abc]

What it looks like is that there is finally a package that E* thinks will make money for E*. I am sure Charlie would do any sports package he thought would bring in money. He just has not demonstrated any want or need in the past to have "loss leaders" like D* has used with NFL Sunday Ticket.

[Allen W]

This is great news, I will definitely order this package. Hockey's my favorite sport by far. I also am hearing that the NBA League Pass will also be available this season from Dish, and an announcement should come soon.

[Brian Rector]

This is good news for everyone. Dish subs will even have the opportunity to watch games from CTV and also CBC. This is an added bonus and it was well worth the money spent for the subscription.

[jeffwtux]

This is a definite plus for us here in Hockeytown USA (Detroit). Even with over the air reception of CBC 9 from Windsor along with every single Red Wings game(and the Red Wings are by far the most popular professional sports team in Detroit), and ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2, hockey fans here still want more. Personally, all of the above broadcasts are plenty for me. BTW. what's up with that new NBA TV deal with ESPN and AOL. That steal stunk to high heaven. I bet that deal falls through especially the new NBA channel which was solely devised to extort cable and satellite subscribers and drive satellite out of cities and surburbs.

[jeffwtux]

Plus, my friend said he read an article in the WSJ that the NFL was seriously considering a bid from "Big Cable" for exclusive rights to the new Sunday Ticket contract. How are they going to pull that off and still please the anti-trust FEDs even a pro-monopoly Bush administration. They would need to collude together to shut out any competition. That will never fly. Frankly, if I was the NFL,. this wouldn't be worth the inevitable anti-trust hastle, no matter how much dirty money the cable monopolies through at me.

[angiodan]

For those that have had center ice in the past, and I being a transplanted canuck, is every Hockey Night in Canada broadcast shown? I'd have to say this is the one thing I've missed most since I moved stateside ten years ago!

If I can get Don Cherry every Saturday, my wallet may be $140 lighter:)

[Unthinkable]

Originally posted by angiodan
For those that have had center ice in the past, and I being a transplanted canuck, is every Hockey Night in Canada broadcast shown? I'd have to say this is the one thing I've missed most since I moved stateside ten years ago!

If I can get Don Cherry every Saturday, my wallet may be $140 lighter:)

I had the Center Ice package back around 1994-1995 timeframe with Primestar when I lived out in Phoenix, AZ and I don't recall them showing every hockey night in Canada broadcast back then, but things have probably changed since then.  I would check it out with some google searches on the web and perhaps call Dish or DirecTV if I were you just to make certain.  I would imagine that you could probably find a decent email address on www.nhl.com (http://www.nhl.com) as a last resort as well.  I know what its like to be out of market and then finally have the chance to see all the games you missed for quite awhile.    

 

[Unthinkable]

http://www.directvsports.com/Subscriptions/NHLCenterIce/

Scroll down to the middle of the page for the 2002-2003 season schedule.

[Geronimo]

As you might imagine another spread on this subject sprang up. In that thread mention was made of the NHL network? Does anyone know of this network?


Ok I answered my own question.


http://www.tsn.ca/nhl_network/

[angiodan]

NHL Network is Canadas version of center ice.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl_network/

[angiodan]

Didn't notice you beat yourself to the punch Geronimo!

Doh!

[Curtis0620]

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/aboutus/headline.jsp?id=05_21_2002A

[mjc242]

I've had Center Ice for the past three seasons with Directv which is all that I used D* for. I can tell you that on Sat. nights there will be at least one CBC game televised. If it is two of the Canadian teams playing each other it will definitely be the CBC station. On the other hand, let's say Edmonton is hosting San Jose they would sometimes show the Fox Sports feed instead, which in my opinion stinks. That would apply to the other Canadian channels like CTV Sportsnet and TSN that provide coverage during the week as well. The Canadian station would have a better chance of coming on if the American station was a local independent station rather than Fox Sports net. I'm not saying that this happened every time. The reason that it made such a difference to me was that some of the Fox Sports nets were horrible in PQ. Of all the stations that cover it CBC was by far the greatest. By the way, I've lived in Texas my whole life and found that I love watching hockey more than anything else on television. Kinda weird huh?

[Tanic]

Originally posted by angiodan
NHL Network is Canadas version of center ice.

Canada's version of center ice is: NHL CENTRE ICE.

NHL Network is a stand-alone channel that is sold separately. In the USA, DirecTV is including a few hours a day of NHL Network if you buy the CI package. I don't know yet if E* will carry it.

[Steve Mehs]

Any one watch the season opener last night, Phoenix at LA? OMG, the PQ was absoulty AMAZING, some of the best picture quality I've seen from E*. The players did not break out in pixels during fast motion, no pixelation on the ice either. Too bad all channels wern't that good. The feed was from Fox Sports Net (West, I'm guessing), I checked the ESPN feed and it was crappy. I wonder how the PQ will be tonight when theres 6 or 7 games on at once.

[Unthinkable]

Originally posted by Tanic


Canada's version of center ice is: NHL CENTRE ICE.

NHL Network is a stand-alone channel that is sold separately. In the USA, DirecTV is including a few hours a day of NHL Network if you buy the CI package. I don't know yet if E* will carry it.

In the email I received from Dish Networks customer service rep a few days ago, I was told that the NHL Network would supposedly be up by the 20th of this month for what its worth.

[Unthinkable]

Originally posted by Steve Mehs
Any one watch the season opener last night, Phoenix at LA? OMG, the PQ was absoulty AMAZING, some of the best picture quality I've seen from E*. The players did not break out in pixels during fast motion, no pixelation on the ice either. Too bad all channels wern't that good. The feed was from Fox Sports Net (West, I'm guessing), I checked the ESPN feed and it was crappy. I wonder how the PQ will be tonight when theres 6 or 7 games on at once.

I totally agree Steve.  I was flipping between Espn2 and NHL CI on Channel 540 last night and you could easily tell the brightness and color saturation looked a lot more natural on Center Ice.  Some arenas always have the tendency on ESPN/2 to look improperly lighted like the Nassau Coliseum where the Islanders play for example and you get the feeling they are playing with only half the lights working above them there or someone is completely asleep at the wheel in the production booth with regards to properly lighting and displaying the true color of the ice!  The most evident thing to me was the yellow line painted at the bottom of the boards.  Look for this tonight if any of the games are duplicated on both Espn and Center Ice. 

[Steve Mehs]

The most evident thing to me was the yellow line painted at the bottom of the boards. Look for this tonight if any of the games are duplicated on both Espn and Center Ice.

Didn't even notice that last night, but I'll pay closer attention with the Toronto v Pitts game that will be on ESPN2 and 543. I'm really excited about this, I've never really been a hockey fan, I follow it during the playoffs though. If I had the dough right now I'd be sub to it. Hopefully next season I will. Plus there might be a mid season free prewiew, I know D* does that sometimes with some of the sports packages.

[rangers]

Does Dish Network allow subscriptions of Center Ice alone? i.e. not requiring a sub of Top-50/100/150 to get CI?

[Steve Mehs]

Yeah but you'll have to pay the $5/month for not having a basic package.

[JohnL]

Originally posted by The Unthinkable


In the email I received from Dish Networks customer service rep a few days ago, I was told that the NHL Network would supposedly be up by the 20th of this month for what its worth.

Below is a E Correspondence I received from Dish Network after asking questions about Center Ice. There was a direct comment that the NHL channel will be included in the Center Ice package starting October 20th.

Dear Mr. Lodge,

Thank you for your e-mail. DISH Network will have the NHL CENTER ICE package for the upcoming National Hockey League season. The National Hockey League's CENTER ICE broadcast television package provides up to 40 games per week outside the subscribers local market area. Select first and second round Stanley Cup playoff games are also included. The NHL CENTER ICE package includes over a thousand total games (DISH 500 required).

The NHL regular season begins on October 9, 2002, and ends on April 6, 2003. The NHL Network is available as of October 20, 2002, to all NHL CENTER ICE subscribers. The NHL Network shows hockey highlights as well as how to order the NHL CENTER ICE package. Customers MUST call 1-800-333-DISH to order the season package.

Prices for packages are as follows:

Early Bird: 10/09/02 - 10/15/02: $139.00

Regular Season: 10/16/02 - 01/05/03: $159.00

Half Season: 01/06/03 - 05/06/03: $109.00

There will be a free Preview to all DISH Network customers from 10/09/02 through 10/15/02.



One Payment

10/09/02 - 05/06/03

* Customers will be billed the entire package price at one time

Three Installment Payments

10/09/02 - 05/06/03

* Early Bird customers will be billed in 3 installments of $46.33

* Regular Season customers will be billed in 3 installments of $53.00

Your business is greatly appreciated and we thank you for allowing us to be of assistance to you. If you have any further questions or concerns, please refer to www.dishnetwork.com or reply to this email and include all previous correspondence so that we may assist you promptly.

As a current customer, you may also use our website to view your current or previous billing statements, add services, or make payments to your account. Please use the link https://customersupport.dishnetwork.com/customercare/UserManagement/login.jsp to launch yourself to the Dish Network Customer Support Center.




Sincerely,

Nicole S.

DISH Network e-Care

[Unthinkable]

I just noticed tonight that when the Dallas vs Phoenix feed switches out to a commercial break, we are treated to the similar NHL Center Ice screen with a commercial tagline at the bottom and its set to the music temporarily piped in from channel 960 Modern Rock Alternative. Good choice in music I would say.