So watching Stars TV right now on the website. It has some decent production values, has Razor's voice and interviews with all the guys who have been in Dallas and skating. Pretty cool.

It made me think about how much I truly hate when I cannot get an HD feed down here in Austin. Fox Sports seems like it carries too many teams to actively provide quality coverage of each team. Especially when my team has been underachieving and on the downswing in popularity in it's home market.
It's been too long, but I remember there being over half the time here in Austin when I could not get the HD feed, and probably 10-15 games that were not televised even on the unlisted overflow crappy feed.

But of course due to bizarre blackout rules, being in Austin, I can't just find an online HD feed. GameCenter Live blocks Stars games when I want to watch them, and i don't want to pay to catch next morning replays. CenterIce suffers the same archaic rules. So any other avenue I have of watching the Stars in HD is illegal, as is just watching the bloody game when the neo-barbs in FoxSW land dork it up and provide me with UCLA vs USC basketball coverage in bloody Texas.

Why can't there be a way for the team, the Stars to provide a feed of the game on their website, but with area appropriate advertisements? It's only about advertising dollars and cable licensing fees, but if the cable company/channel is dorking it up then the team needs to be able to push their presence. The cable companies need to be prompt and truthful about when they are not going to be covering a team that they have blacked out, so the team can use alternative methods to get the Stars out there.

If the league had been smart in the last 20 years and if the Stars had been winning the last 4 years it would probably be different. But in a state as big as Texas, with FOXSSW having such a huge market area, having the Dallas area with three major sports teams on one network seems insane. Of course, the Stars have sucked while we are experiencing a large upswing in the success of our two perennial bottom feeders, bumping Stars coverage. Add in all the myriad college sports teams for this region and the Stars are bumped even further. Then you add in the stupidity of having random California college scrimmages supercede Stars coverage.

Sadly, I have no solution. This is something I assume pro teams have already identified and attempted to correct. The Stars employ real marketing and tech-savvy folks, not just RNs who geek hockey on the side. But I just wish there was a Stars network I could tune in and watch the Stars games in HD while also catching all the cool behind the scenes stuff. I just want to hear Ralph and Razor call the game and watch it in HD! Is that too much to ask?!