NBC says it will show Friday’s US hockey game live across all time zones

NBC: Friday’s game will be live across country

NEW YORK — After once again annoying Olympic hockey fans, NBC has promised to broadcast the U.S. men’s team’s next game live in all time zones.

The network aired the Americans’ 2-0 victory over Switzerland on Wednesday live in the Eastern and Central time zones. It was on a one-hour tape delay in the Mountain time zone and two-hour delay for the West Coast. It wasn’t immediately clear why the network didn’t show the game live across the United States. NBC streamed it live everywhere on its Olympics Web site.

The United States will play the winner of the Czech Republic-Finland game on Friday in a semifinal at the Vancouver Games.

Some viewers vented their anger on the Web. San Francisco viewer Elrod May wrote on Twitter: “Once again NBC fails during the winter olympics, I have to watch the men’s hockey game on msnbc.com.”

On Sunday, the Americans’ 5-3 upset victory over Canada was aired live on MSNBC — not NBC, which was showing figure skating — and only briefly touched upon during NBC’s prime-time Olympics broadcast. That made some fans angry, but NBC rarely airs such a lengthy live event in its prime-time Olympics coverage.