Dear Center Ice Online

Dear CenterIce Online,

I am an ice hockey fan, and have been for more than a decade now. I do not live in the same market as the team I follow, so the only way for me to legally watch my favorite team play is through the NHL’s Center Ice package. As a bonus, I get to watch Western Conference hockey whenever I’d like.

However, I also live in an area where the cable television service is less than ideal. The general incompetence of the local cable company is such that trying to get them to carry Center Ice was impossible. Fortunately for me, the NHL also has a service called Center Ice Online, by which I can watch streaming video of almost all of the games that would be shown on Center Ice. I eagerly signed up and got ready to enjoy a full season of hockey action.

The problem is, it sucks. The $100+ I paid for the service gets me no real added value over not paying for the service. So, if you would ever like me to pay for your service again, then you need to:

1. provide better quality feeds than I can get from TVU or SopCast.
2. not black out games on supposed “national” networks that are not basic cable in some markets, e.g. Vs.
3. not force me to sit through commercials in order to use a product I paid good money for.
4. provision enough bandwidth for proper enjoyment of games by the paying users. Every singe popular match-up I’ve seen all season becomes choppy and stutters until you degrade the video stream to accommodate the number of users. Maybe you should take a page from the TVU/SopCast playbook and use a P2P setup so that more users = better feed instead of more users = worse feed.