The season starts now

It's been an interesting week so far for the Canucks, you won't find too many sports leagues around where a team is beaten 4-0 at home on a Tuesday night only to bounce back with a 5-1 win two days later in front of their own fans. That's one of the reasons I was drawn to the NHL actually, while there are obviously the bigger franchises who are expected to reach the play-offs the sheer number of games means that anyone can beat anyone. It certainly beats watching Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea and all their billions roll teams over week after week.

I was late catching up with Tuesday's match (laptop problems - which may or may not now be resolved!) which is why this entry is a little later than usual. It was my first time watching the Rangers and Henrik Lundqvist certainly stood out, putting in the best goalie performance I've seen so far and helping to complete a classic 'smash and grab' for his team. The criticism aimed at Roberto Luongo after that match was excessive, I'm not going to focus on him this early in the season. Firstly because everyone else is writing plenty about his performances and secondly because I haven't seen enough of the guy to have an objective opinion.

Thursday's outing against the Predators was far more satisfying to watch, particularly the play that led to Dale Weiss' first NHL goal into the top shelf (another new term to learn). The Sedin twins are starting to warm up and it was good to see Ryan Kesler return with a classy goal. I actually intended to avoid the result of this game and watch it all the way through without knowing, however when I got in from work today I flicked on Sky Sports News (our version of ESPN Sports Center I suppose) and the score was on the screen. I'd never even noticed that they reported NHL scores before, typical! Anyway, offensively it was a much stronger performance and if the team keep playing like that nobody will be talking about Luongo. Well, maybe.

As I mentioned on Twitter earlier on in the week I've shelled out on the NHL's GameCenter Live package . The Premier Sports scheduling does look okay, showing ten matches a week, but I figured if I'm aiming to follow one team it will be a hell of a lot easier to be able to pick and choose what I watch. Tomorrow, thanks to an early start, I'll actually get to watch my first live game, the time difference and the fact I have to go to work normally put paid to that but tomorrow's game will start at 9pm and I can't wait. I'm looking forward to being able to see the action as it happens rather than waking up in the morning and reaching for my phone to get the score. Knowing my luck, it will be a scrappy 1-0 defeat.