Team USA Hockey to be Tape-Delayed to the West Coast

UPDATE: NBC agrees to broadcast the gold medal game live to all time zones.

This is really irritating for West Coasters who also happen to be fans of Team USA Olympic Hockey. Sunday's critical game against Canada was shown live on MSNBC (I think that was the first time I ever watched anything on MSNBC), but the medal round games coming up will be shown three hours late out here:

If you somehow get to play hooky from work or simply want to catch the U.S.-Switzerland quarterfinal men’s hockey game during part of your lunch hour Wednesday, grab a snack and settle in for …

The Ellen DeGeneres Show, followed by Days Of Our Lives and The Martha Stewart Show.

The U.S. will drop the puck at noon PST, but NBC is airing the aforementioned programs at that time in Southern California and showing the hockey game on tape delay at 3 p.m.

Those on the East Coast will see the game live.

So why are West Coast viewers getting the short end of the hockey stick?

Almost all of the men’s hockey preliminary games were shown mostly without delay on NBC sister channels MSNBC, CNBC or USA. But because Olympics programming on mothership NBC doesn’t broadcast live on the West Coast, viewers will get tape delays of hockey that’s shown there.

So if the U.S. advances to Friday’s semifinals, that game will be tape delayed by three hours on the West Coast.

Sunday’s gold medal game?

That is scheduled to shown on NBC at 3 p.m. on the West Coast – three hours after the game is played.

If you want to know what's going on in the game you better get a Twitter account. There's always lots of East Coasters tweeting along with the proceedings. By the time it's shown on the West Coast we'll all know how it ended and few of us will probably watch it.