It's like watching hockey through Max Headroom's eyes
DirecTV is the bane of every Western Pennsylvania hockey-lover's existence. You may have heard that DirecTV no longer offers the Versus channel—a station that's only worth caring about because of the eight or so hockey games they have a year—because of a dispute between the satellite company and Comcast (who owns Vs.). The dispute has left every Pens fan out in the cold, forced to go to extreme measures (like go to a sports bar) just to see the rare game that graces the channel. Last night was one of those games, as the Pens faced the Minnesota Wild.
It was also my dad's birthday. What better way to celebrate than for he and I to bond over a tape of the game... on VHS? Thanks to the diligent work of my uncle, who taped the event using arcane methods, we were able to watch the game through a strange time vortex that added about 20 years to the age of the footage. The most important rule for all HD TV owners should be: don't hook up your VCR. On a regular old tube television, VHS tapes don't look half bad; blown up on a big flatscreen, and your eyes start to bleed.
The tape began with an old commercial for The Empire Strikes Back, which must have been showing on cable back in 1995 or something. In fact, the movie actually started and the opening prelude began scrolling on the screen before the game fought its way through the snowy miasma. I remembered right away that the skip ahead and varying fast forward speeds of my DVR were now gone. A generic fast forward was my only defense for lulls in the action.
The game itself played out like a mix between Max Headroom and a David Lynch dream sequence. The picture struggled to stay on the screen as frames flickered in from top to bottom. We tried holding down the "tracking" buttons. For you kids out there who have never seen a VCR, the tracking buttons fix every video issue with the tape for approximately five seconds at a time. Once we got the frame to settle down, we just had to contend with the sputtering action, a rotating band of snow that would wipe across the screen the moment the Pens got the puck in front of the Wild's goaltender, and an audio squeal that sounded like a DJ scratching along with the commentators. Then the picture would just shift to black and white. I assume it was for dramatic effect.
We got through the game, although half the time I couldn't really tell what was happening. It made me long for the days of the Fox Tracker (a little blue highlight that would follow the puck around on the ice so old people could see it properly). The Pens lost the game 4-3, which is always a bummer. For me and my dad, we were just happy it was over. Time to rewind!
