How to “watch”: Four Nations 2017

Your guide on how to watch the 2017 Four Nations tournament - or maybe not watch

Between today and Nov. 12, four of the top women’s hockey teams will square off in the annual Four Nations Cups. This year’s tourney will be held in Florida in Wesley Chapel with the two medal games played at Amalie Arena, home of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Here’s the schedule from the Team USA site.

Now on to how to watch it...you have two options.

1) Go to Florida.

2) Assuming you CAN'T go to Florida (if you can, please take us with you), you can watch the games on HockeyTV - yes, that's the ONLY place it's streaming. Hope you’re ready to fork over $29.99 for a month-long subscription to watch all eight games (Don’t forget to cancel your subscription, either, or you’ll get automatically charged).

Or you could pay $199.99 for a full 12-months of access to HockeyTV. It breaks down to $16.67 a month. Sounds like a great deal, right? Especially since HockeyTV advertises “tens of thousands” of live games. Scroll down a bit farther and you’ll see that you can watch leagues such as “Eastern Hockey League Premier” and “Tier 1 Elite Hockey League Midget Major” and “NAPHL U15” and “Atlantic Youth Hockey League 16U” and more.

Yes, you read that right. Serious Olympic contenders will be broadcast alongside under-16 games.

What. A. Joke.

It is an Olympic year. This is a lost opportunity for all of the countries - especially the host USA - to gain visibility, traction, fans, and hype ahead of February. Women’s hockey can only grow through more visibility, whether that be games on TV or games that are free to watch and easy to find. Visibility comes through the ease and ability to watch. Streaming these games on HockeyTV does not fall under that.

I don’t know who is responsible for securing TV and streaming rights. But whoever does so: Be better. Do better.

You can read our previews for country below.