[Chad]

Premier Sports seem to have hacked off plenty of Virgin Media and other non-SKY NHL fans in the UK with their new TV deal.

NHL fans without SKY usually get their fix via subscription too NHL’s Game Centre Live (GCL). However under the new TV deal, games that are shown live on Premier Sports will NOT be available live on GCL. Premier Sports, currently only available to Sky customers, has a four year exclusive agreement for NHL rights in the UK and aims to show up to 15 games per week.

Premier Sports have confirmed that 13 to 15 games each week, most playoff games from round 1 and round 2, all of the playoff games from round 3, the Stanley Cup Final, the Winter Classic and All-star matches will be blacked out.

The Premier Sports Facebook page is full of angry posts. The NHLUK Twitter feed has plenty of disgruntled fans posting their disgust too. NHL fans only had to pay $49.99 for a full years access to all games via GCL. Now they will have to pay £10.00 per month to Premier Sports on top of their $49.99 to enjoy the same amount of action they did last season. Even NHL fans with SKY and Premier Sports are sticking the boot in too. They are not happy with the coverage and "expected live games" being dropped for re-runs of SPL football.