Sports TV in Canada (aka why I pay $30 a month for a lot of stuff) - theaub's Blog

theaub's Blog

Sports TV in Canada (aka why I pay $30 a month for a lot of stuff)

Posted on November 11, 2008 at 12:05 AM.

Living in Canada, there are certain disadvantages that exist in regards to watching sports on TV. Mainly, ESPN does not exist in Canada. Instead, an ESPN owned station called TSN is in its place, which shows nothing but hockey. Recently, TSN2 was introduced, but it isn't carried on my cable package. There are also four Sportsnet channels (that show hockey), and The Score (that shows basketball and *gasp* no hockey).

However, a "Super Sports Pak" exists in Canada. For $30 a month, one can get MLB Extra Innings, NFL Sunday Ticket, NHL Centre Ice, NBA League Pass, NASCAR...whatever NASCAR is called, some OHL crap, and most importantly, NCAA coverage from ESPN + BTN. Along with this package, some basic haggling can get the same person the Seattle ABC, CBS, FOX and other stuff for HD. Of course, the former three I mentioned are important when it comes to getting football in HD.

I may be exaggerating, but this is the best invention ever, barring the inventions of what were needed to allow me to watch the Pak (so electricity, TV, HD, etc). With my university currently being on strike due to the greedy, greedy TA's, I have recently done the following:

Wednesday-Friday: Watched the first four seasons of The Office to get caught up (note for readers: never watch 65 epsidoes of a show + deleted scenes + other stuff in 60 hours. I now talk to invisible cameras when I'm on my own).
Saturday-Sunday: 15 CFB games + 14 NFL games + 1 Blackhawk game

That last comment brings me to another point as too why watching and paying for too much TV is a very good thing. In previous years, I about four Chicago Blackhawk games per year. As we can tell, I do enjoy the Blackhawks (cheap dynasty plug goes here). I now have moved to watching 82 games per year, which is awesome.

So after this rambling non-monstrosity of a rant, does this exist anywhere else? Does anyone else have it? I've always wondered that.

Comments

# 1 Steve_OS @ Nov 11

Had no idea you were in Canada.

# 2 theaub @ Nov 11

Ontario is in Canada

# 3 SPTO @ Nov 11

There's an Ontario in California though.

Anywho as to your main question. There are sports packs in the US but I don't think they're bundled together in one superpak like the Rogers one is.