LEWISTON — The Niagara athletics department has reached a deal with Fox College Sports that will make the second-year Niagara Sports Network available to digital cable and Direct TV subscribers throughout the country.
“Essentially, this allows us to get anywhere in the country,” associate athletics director Glenn Hoffman said Tuesday.
NSN will produce broadcasts for four regular season men’s hockey games — beginning with Thursday’s NCAA Tournament rematch at Michigan — and four men’s basketball games.
The deal with Fox College Sports increases NSN’s potential audience by more than 100 million, according to Hoffman.
The network was initially slated for local broadcast on RTN-11, as well as Time Warner Cable channels in Rochester and Albany. The games will still be seen on these stations, but now will be available to cable subscribers on FCS Atlantic, FCS Midwest and FCS Pacific.
Thursday’s game will air on FCS Pacific, which is channel 151 on Time Warner. FCS Atlantic is channel 149, while FCS Midwest is channel 150.
Viewers outside of Western New York can find out where to find FCS channels on their cable service by visiting FoxCollegeSports.com or calling 1-877-2-GET-FCS.
DirecTV channel 617 began carrying live FCS broadcasts this fall. Since the service has just one FCS channel, some NSN games may not be available on DirecTV.
“It’ll be a game-by-game basis,” Hoffman said.
Thursday’s broadcast will include play-by-play from Steve Degler, and color commentary from WGR reporter Paul Hamilton. Fellow WGR personality Jeremy White will report from the Purple Eagles bench. In between periods, NSN will air a feature story on the musical talents of senior defenseman Armando Scarlato, and an interview with Niagara AD Ed McLaughlin.
Women’s Volleyball
NU hosts Canisius
The Battle of the Bridge goes indoors tonight, when the Purple Eagles (4-18, 2-8 MAAC) take on local rival Canisius (13-6, 8-2) at 7 p.m. in the Gallagher Center. Niagara is coming off a sweep of Loyola on Sunday. Led by Michelle Godfrey (North Tonawanda), the Golden Griffins rank first in the MAAC in hitting percentage and second in blocks per game.
Time Warner Cable will show the game on channel 20 at 8:30 p.m. Thursday and 4 p.m. Sunday. A live Web stream of the game is available at PurpleEagles.com.
Niagara defeated Canisius in four games last season. The Purple Eagles lead the multi-sport Battle of the Bridge series 2-0 thanks to its men’s soccer victory on Saturday.
NCCC falls in four
The Trailblazers won the first set (25-14), then dropped the final three (25-19, 25-20, 25-16). NCCC finished the regular season at 17-3.
Diving
O’Rourke makes MAAC splash
Ian O’Rourke (Grand Island) has been tabbed as the first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference diver of the week for the 2008-09 season on Tuesday. O’Rourke broke two of his own records at the season-opening Western New York Invitational, and a third record at a meet in Fredonia.
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