Oh he's terrible and his sidekick Rimer is worse. He has no business calling long distance speed walking, let alone hockey.

Everytime the Panthers would rush up ice, Rimer would say "the Panthers are on the prowl". Ugh I wanted to reach thru the screen and wring his scrawny neck!

And no matter what, no matter what....the other team was in the wrong when penalties were called. They were huge homers.

If you all thought JD was an MSG schill, these two would make you vomit.

But what would be my "local" (think area) network if not the NYC ones? NESN? 135 miles from the border of NYC, 165 to Boston. It is the closest sports net.

No, I'm saying you shouldn't have an 'area' team, you should have full access to all of them.

One could logically conclude you're a fan of Canadian teams instead of NY ones.

That would be ideal.

I'm closer to NYC than Philadelphia, yet I get Philly teams because I'm in PA.

Lucky you.

SO I have to get the stupid sports package thing on DTV that gives MSG and the YES Network; eventhough the games on YES are blacked out so I have to buy the MLB Package.
So YES comes in, but not the games because I'm in PA and they consider the Phillies to be local
Yet the Ranger games on MSG aren't blacked out Makes no sense.

I have no idea what you just said.

So you don't get the Yankees?

All I know is that since I didn't order any baseball package, I never got baseball games on any network unless it was on local channels. Is that what you mean? The baseball is blacked out on anything but a local channel, unless you have the MLB package.

I ordered this package on DTV, you get the YES channel and MSG.
I get the Rangers on MSG.
I get the YES channel but the Yankee games are blacked out.
So while I don't have to order the NHL Center Ice Package to watch the Rangers, I have to order the MLB Package to watch the Yankees.

Ok, I get ya now. That's weird you don't have to order NHL package to get the Rangers. They must be an 'area' team then. No way the NHL would allow you to get something for nothing, so I guess the Yankees aren't an 'area' team.

Sometimes I'd get the Tampa Bay Lightening when I lived in Florida and they might be equatable to the Rangers in Philly. Not a local team, but we got their games when they were on the Sunshine network.

Albany is considered a fringe NYC area sports city.I live in Glens Falls(about 50 mile north of Albany) and MSG blackouts about 30 NYR games a year.I guess outside of a 50 mile radius of NYC,cable systems must blackout certain games due to rights that other cable systems have to those games on their respective local sports network.However,these stations are not carried anywhere else, so we get the shaft.Over the past 7 years,this has been a good thing.They don't blackout any ESPN Ranger games.
The whole blackout rule was ignored by cable systems until the early 90's,when the NHL started to inforce it.The rule make no sense,since you're taking away games from the true fans,and you get less exposure for the league for the casual fan.

The Rangers, Islanders, Devils are blacked out for me when the Buffalo Sabres are at home and on their cable outlet. Otherwise, I get the NYC games. I can't figure out the NHL reasoning on that!