Twice in recent months I’ve come across one of my favourite
sports on TV only to have the channel disappear soon after.
A few months ago the ‘special event’ TV channel (which is normally
locked down and only screens pay per view UFC) started showing Winter Olympic
highlights. They were rather crappy highlights with more time being dedicated
to single shots of the Olympic flame than actual sport highlights.
Anyway… the weekend the Olympics finished the Super Rugby
competition started. I just happened to flick to said channel around mid
afte
rnoon to find a one shot of a rugby field. I quickly realised I was about
to get the first game of the season out of New Zealand. Later that evening I got
to watch my ‘hometown’ team the Queensland Reds play. I was pretty excited at
actually getting to watch some Rugby and especially that it was a Reds game.
The weird thing about coverage is that we appeared to be
getting the raw non-edited feed. Prior to the game we would see 30 minutes of
the TV coverage team testing their cameras and microphones, there was no
advertising and I often busted the commentators saying funny things while they
thought they were ‘off-air’.
Sadly after the Olympics finished the next day the Rugby
disappeared as well. What I suspect is that the local TV company was pinching
the Winter Olympic highlight feed off a random satellite which just happened to
be showing raw Super Rugby footage. Once the Olympics finished they shut down
the connection so no more Rugby for Nathan :(
While I love watching Rugby I can deal with missing out on
this while living in Palau. What I’m struggling with missing is watching (Ice)
Hockey. When we first arrived here in June last year the NHL’s Stanley Cup
Finals were about to start. Much to my dismay the only sports channel (ESPN)
decided to play early season baseball and not the hockey finals. And just in
case you haven’t been following this blog, the internet here is so bad (and
expensive) that you can hardly bring up static webpages let alone internet
radio or streamed video. So it’s been much like 1996 all over again, having to
catch up with the results and news from static webpages every evening or so.
.jpg) |
| Proof there was once a hockey game on TV in Palau |
Cut to a few weeks ago. I was out diving and happened to
start talking hockey with one of my customers, he mentioned he’d watched a
little of the Montreal v Tampa Bay game in his hotel the previous evening. Over
the next couple of days with the help of our favourite bartender we quickly
worked out that his hotel (Palasia) had a different satellite feed (out of
Taiwan) and the old CRT TV behind the bar was connected to this.
The next night a few of us had a bunch of drinks and pizza
and got to watch Montreal dispatch Tampa from the playoffs. It was a great
night and it was incredible to watch some hockey again. Palau suddenly became a
whole lot more liveable for me.
But sadly last week while a mate of mine was watching
another game the channel suddenly went off air. Not the whole satellite, just
that channel. Guess what... yep the channel is completely gone and apparently
there is nothing they can do about it. So back to the dark ages again…
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