Argh.  I just called my cable company and confirmed my
suspicion that they won't be carrying the Pay-Per-View broadcast of
the NCAA Regionals.  (At least I think so; the woman I spoke to at TCI
Cablevision in Salt Lake said there was no NHL on "pay-per-view
movie", but after I yelled at her for a while about college hockey and
special events, she said there was no hockey on their PPV schedule in
the month of March.)  I had figured this when I saw the following
update on USCHO's D1 TV schedule
     http://www.uscollegehockey.com/schedules/19971998/d1/tv.html
 
" Scheduled providers according to the NCAA are DirecTV PPV, Echostar
" PPV (subject to blackout), Cox Cable (RI), WNVT-TV (Wash. DC), and
" WISC-TV/TVW (Madison, WI).
 
        So when the PPV plan was first announced, I thought it would
be a sea change, letting all of us watch the NCAAs in our living rooms
instead of going thru the usual sports bar crap.  But no, it seems to
me that in most of the country you still need a mini-dish to see the
tournament, but now you have to pay extra for it.  Sounds like a good
plan for the NC$$, not those of us still suffering in the hinterlands.
 
        Am I mistaken here?  What is Echostar PPV and how many cable
systems across the country use it?
                                         John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                     Official Scorer/PA Announcer
                                        U of Utah Ice Hockey Club
                                               <[log in to unmask]>
                      <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/joe.html>
 
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