Columbia resident Justin Carlson is a self-described “Caps junkie.”

“I’m an old-school fan,” he said. “I grew up rooting for the Caps. I pinch myself because I can’t believe we’re this good.”
 
With the Washington Capitals in first place in the National Hockey League’s Southeast division, a legitimate Stanley Cup contender with one of the league’s best records and the NHL's two-time reigning Most Valuable Player, Carlson and other Caps fans from Howard County say they’re frustrated they can’t get all the team’s games on Verizon’s FiOS cable service.

That’s because Verizon is not carrying the channel CSN+ in Howard County, which broadcasts about a dozen of the Capitals games a season.

Although other hockey games can be seen on CSN, Versus, the NHL Network and the league-wide pay-per-view subscripton service Center Ice, the absence of CSN+ here means 15 percent of the Capitals’ games are unavailable — unlike in neighboring Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, which offer the channel.

“When you’re a fan, that’s a lot,” said Mike Holden, who grew up in North Laurel and has raised the issue on his blog, mikeholden.wordpress.com.

“When you’re an organization that’s playing some fantastic hockey that you’d like for as many fans and potential fans as possible to see, it’s not ideal, either.”

At a time when the Capitals are seeing tremendous success, including Thursday night's impressive 6-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the team is being marketed north of Baltimore, Holden would like to see standouts like two-time defending MVP Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green — in all of their games.

“It’s not as if these areas are outside of Caps territory,” Holden wrote of Howard and Anne Arundel counties in his blog. “My parents are FiOS customers, Caps full season ticket holders and live in Howard County, just over 25 miles from downtown D.C. The Caps even market the team another 20 miles up the road from them in Baltimore.
 
“There are plenty of Caps fans throughout Howard, Anne Arundel and beyond, especially these days when the team is on marketing fire.”
 
Change in the works?

Carlson, Holden and others say they’ve tried to raise the issue to Verizon officials. Carlson even contacted Capitals owner Ted Leonsis, who said in an e-mail the issue wasn’t his to fix.
 
But their concerns appear to have been heard.
 
In an e-mail response to a question from the Howard County Times, Verizon spokeswoman Sandy Arnette said negotiations were in the works to get all the Capitals games on FiOS in more markets in Maryland.
 
“There may be good news for your readers who are Caps fans,” she wrote. “I did some checking and learned that Verizon is working with Comcast SportsNet Maryland (CSN) to provide additional programming to FiOS TV customers in the Baltimore and Howard/Anne Arundel markets.  There's no date yet on when this might happen.  But, we are hopeful that the additional programming will be available soon.”

Arnette said CSN+ is currently only available in the D.C. metro area, but will hopefully be expanding that coverage because of the demand.

“We’re working with Comcast to make sure all of our customers can see the Capitals play, and plan to have a solution in place soon,” she said.
 
The company has also put out a message on its Twitter page about fixing the problem.

Holden says he’s going to stay on top of Verizon officials to make sure they follow through.
 
“As far as keeping momentum going, I think people need to keep the pressure on them by discussing it in as many public forums as possible, trying to get more media/blog coverage for the issue and letting Verizon know that they want to see this addressed in a timely manner,” he wrote in response to several comments on his blog.
 
“It’s nice that Verizon has made a statement on Twitter about fixing this problem, but it’s unfortunate that they haven’t been more transparent about how long the fix will take and why it can’t be done faster.”

This article has been updated.

---

user comments (5)

user belovedcartoonmouse says...

Why do we let cable providers own channels? Conflict of interest anyone?

Posted 7:06 PM, 01.22.10 | Permalink

user lisbonite says...

seriously? This makes the front page? I'd rather hear more about how we should return Columbia to greenspace or lessons on how to compost our own poo.

Posted 9:42 PM, 01.22.10 | Permalink

user dno21 says...

Verizon used to promise that all regional sports programs not on the regular channels would be carried on Fios1, but then they took that away.

Posted 11:22 AM, 01.26.10 | Permalink

user mlbaltz says...

Same here in Richmond... Waiting for a fix!

Posted 12:21 PM, 01.26.10 | Permalink

user tatunka says...

I purchased NHL Center Ice figuring I could bypass this BS with Verizon. Games are blacked out on Center Ice also. Save your money. I gave my two cents to Verizon and got my money back.

Posted 8:05 PM, 01.26.10 | Permalink