I just experimented with that website. What you can do for free is to type in the name of your school and it will give you a menu of everything they have for that school. So I just finished watching both our games with Galax...meaning last year's state championship game and last Saturday's semi-final. So the conclusion I can draw from that is that you can watch anything and everything you want for free if it is old news, but if you want to watch something live this weekend, I am sure it will cost. But I think the cost of a day pass is something like $9.95. So that is an option for myself for later in the day on Saturday or for any of you who choose not to attend any of the games. Again the address is:
www.nfhsnetwork.com.
As for the two telecasts I just watched, the game at Galax last Saturday was not very good quality. The camera guys did their best but quite often they were behind the play, so that we missed some great catches or finishes. Also on my particular computer, the sound was very low. I turned the volume up as loud as it would go and it was still just barely above a whisper. I will be interested in hearing if it was that way for the rest of you.
This broadcast consisted of the Galax radio guys offering the commentary and I just have to say that they were biased with a Capital B. They gave Riverheads "some" credit, I mean how could they not after that performance? But most of their take on the game was all about how Galax did not come prepared, so and so must not be feeling well today, and their opinion of the officiating???? Oh my! There were two different occasions in which they screamed for pass interference, even though there was nothing shown on camera that backed them up. After the second one that they thought should have been called, they literally harped on it for the rest of the game. So they more or less implied that the refs were pro-Riverheads and if a college coach or broadcaster had gone overboard as much as these guys did, they would have been fined. So watch it for yourselves folks, and you will see what I mean.
As for the state final last year, I fast forwarded to the fourth quarter because let's face it...that was when the fun started. The quality was of course better, the sound was fine, and the announcers were not pros, but they were decent. This was the first time I had watched this broadcast, so this may be old news for Riverheads fans, but they went through the entire game without being corrected on the pronunciation of Landon Diehl's last name. It is of course pronounced like "deal" but they consistently called him "dial." Surely somebody could have nudged them during a two-hour broadcast.
But as I said, all of that is old news and in less than 48 hours we will have six new state champs crowned and a lot more to talk about!
