Rogers Television Sucks

I woke up early this morning to watch the live broadcast of the Landsdowne Park South Side stands demolition. It was supposed to be broadcast from the City of Ottawa web site starting at 7:50am, with the actual implosion at 8:00am.

I was sure there'd be plenty of replay broadcasts available later in the day, but it's not the same as actually seeing something like this LIVE.

I got up at 7:30am and loaded up the web site at 7:45. The Rogers Television logo stared back at me from the web page. That should have been my first indication that this was going to go very well.

On cue, the live broadcast began at 7:50am. As 8:00am approached, the streaming broadcast began to stutter.

"Great. Rogers can't handle the demand", I said to myself.

A few minutes after 8:00am, according to my PC time, the warning horn sounded.

More streaming stutter.

My wife and I joked that we're going to miss the implosion. We'll see one frame of the stands still intact, and on the next it'll be gone.

That's pretty much what we saw.

The broadcast stream continued to get worse. Pausing for 10-15 seconds at a time.

Seconds before you could hear the countdown, the tiny screen went all blue. WTF?

You could still hear the occasional bit of audio.

Then the countdown started. Or parts of it. Followed by broken sounds of the explosive charges going off.

Then a picture. A paused picture of the left side of the stands beginning to fall.

Then applause as the demolition crew cheered.

I sat staring at the one image.

All week, the newspapers were warning of road closures and advising people to watch the broadcast stream. That there was no way they could get anywhere near the site to see it live, and then Rogers totally screws up the broadcast stream.

I'm sure it was all due to their inability to handle the demand, but what the hell did they expect?

Way to go Rogers. Fuckin' morons.

If you're interested in seeing what most of Ottawa probably missed, they're replaying the event here: Implosion of the lower south-side stands at Lansdowne Park

Am I the only one who thought the entire stands was going to be demolished? It's still kinda cool to see.



This is a spectators video of the implosion. I guess you could get somewhat near enough to see it in person. Judging from a few comments you can hear on the video, I wasn't the only one who thought the entire thing was coming down.