[ actually got a response from the ceo address when I wrote in to complain about the fact that one of the Mariners games wasn't in HD on Dish (when I knew for sure it was available on Comcast and that Fox Sports Northwest was broadcasting in HD):
"At this time of year, while NBA and NHL and MLB are all in season, we are getting more HD games offered to us than we had the bandwidth to support. When this happens, we have to drop games. Each of our providers get a schedule indicating what games we are actually scheduled to air, but not all get their websites updated accordingly."
So at least there is an admission from someone at Dish about the bandwidth issue. The excuse, of course, about the NHL and NBA is ridiculous because those leagues are in the playoffs and not having any games on RSNs.
And to make it worse for those of us on the West Coast, we sometimes get what happened earlier this week: the M's game was "Joined in Progress" - when I tuned into Fox Sports NORTHWEST, I was watching the Marlins play because their game didn't end in time. So they're sharing channels AND axing games in HD.
It's ridiculous, of course, to expect any of the RSNs to identify whether the game is in HD on each of the providers so the comment from Dish is disingenuous at best. For now, we'll all just live in the dark as to the magic formula of who gets their game in HD...