I, Poor Len Canayen, am a fan of the Montréal Canadiens. If I can't go to their games in person, I would watch them on TV...if only I could!
But I live in western Canada -- "western" meaning anywhere west of Québec and the easternmost corner of Ontario. Until this season, that didn't matter. I was able to watch all the Habs games on RDS, and enjoy the superior commentary of their play-by-play team and analysts.
During this summer, though, you, Rogers, made a deal with the so-called National Hockey League (G. Bettman, prop. -- a man who knows nothing about hockey but everything about sharp business deals) by which you, Rogers, got the exclusive rights to broadcast the NHL in Canada.
So you, Rogers, greedy bastards that you are, figured out a way to make little people, like me, pay more to see our favourite team. You reduced drastically the number of Habs games telecast in English on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturdays or Hometown Hockey on Sundays. And you divided up the French telecasts between RDS and TVA.
No problem... or so I thought, as I signed up for Bell TV's "Le monde en français" satellite package. But whoooaaaa... You, Rogers and Bell, have colluded to block the RDS and TVA Sports channels in western Canada (see definition above) only and always when the Montréal games are on!
The object, obviously, is to force me to sign up for your premium "NHL Centre Ice" package, a snip at only C$209 for "the year". (What does that mean? My prediction is that it means "until the end of the regular season", when subscribers will be asked to pay still more if they want to see the playoffs.)
Guess what, greedheads?! I won't do it! I cancelled my subscription to "Le monde en français" and I'll be double damned if I'll sign up for anything else. In fact, I have a good mind to switch to cable TV -- not Rogers! -- and be done forever with Bell's intermittent satellite signals.
To Rogers, Bell and the NHL -- I'm not including RDS and TVA because it's not their fault -- PUCK YOU! Puck you very much!
c.c. Government of Canada Competition Bureau, Canadian Human Rights Commission
No comments:
Post a Comment