What?! New York Rangers hockey game to be first 3D sports broadcast in the United States (and it happens tonight)

Who would have thought that the very first sport to be broadcast in 3D in the U.S. would be hockey? Certainly not me! I would have assumed “football” or baseball, sports with a proud American pedigree. But, whatever, here we are. Cablevision, the same cable company that gives me super-fast Internet (even though I get TV from DirecTV), will broadcast tonight’s Islanders-Rangers game in fancy-pants 3D. Let freedom ring!

The broadcast will be available to any Cablevision subscriber who has MSG Network (I’m not sure if that’s a premium channel these days, been a while since I’ve dealt with Cablevision on the TV side of things) and a 3D TV.

Cablevision will also be hosting some sort of viewing party at Madison Square Garden, where the game takes place tonight. We’re not cool enough to have been invited :-(

You’ll recall that Germany’s first 3D broadcast was a soccer game. The beauty of that is that I know more about the two Germany teams that were involved (Hamburg and Leverkusen) than I do about the Islanders or Rangers.

Interesting fact: The Rangers and Madison Square Garden itself are owned by a company that was spun off from Cablevision. Yes, a cable company nobody has heard of outside of the New York are owns (sorta) the most famous arena in the country. Funny how that works.