For many hockey fans, the Christmas season means one thing -- the World Junior Hockey Championships.

Over the past three decades, the tournament has grown to the point where fan interest now rivals that of the Stanley Cup Finals.

So why are fans south of the border being shut out of Friday's gold medal game between Canada and Russia?

Nobody seems to know for sure, but Center Ice claims to only have the rights to games involving the United States, and will apparently broadcast the anti-climactic bronze medal game between the United States and Sweden.

But not the gold medal game.

The irony is, Center Ice is designed to bring all games -- particularly out of market games -- to hockey fans. Yet when it comes to the World Juniors, American fans are only getting the "in-market" game.

Millions of Canadians reside in the United States, many of whom purchase the Center Ice package. In fact, the interest in the Canadian world junior games may be higher than the interest in American world junior games, given the tournament's status in Canada compared to the United States.

Even those born and raised in the United States would certainly like the chance to watch the gold medal game after being teased with preliminary round and semi-final games. Broadcasting the American games is nice, but one of the key reasons the World Juniors are so popular is the opportunity to see all the top prospects -- from all countries.

And Center Ice has not even been doing so well when it comes to the American games. Tuesday's quarter-final between the United States and Finland was not broadcast on either DirecTV or Dish Network -- at least if it was, nobody could find the game. With the game starting before dawn on the West Coast, most fans needed to set their DVRs. A phone call to DirecTV five hours before game time revealed no information -- the DirecTV staff said as far as they could tell, the game was not on TV.

For Wednesday's semi-final between Canada and the United States, Dish added the game to the television listings late Tuesday. Again, a phone call to DirecTV indicated the game would not be on TV. Yet when fans tuned to channel 767 at 6 a.m., the game was there. Even at that point, however, the on-screen guide indicated nothing was being shown on that channel.

To add to the frustration, DirecTV did not show the first seven minutes of the Americans' opening preliminary round game against Germany. Fans were greeted with a generic Happy Holidays screen until someone finally realized it was time to flip the switch.

DirecTV has taken an ESPN-like approach to hockey coverage this year, as this is far from the first incident. At the start of pre-season, games were blacked out on out-of-market regional sports networks as if it was the regular season. Since Center Ice does not include preseason games, these games are not normally -- or supposed to be -- blacked out.

After a couple of phone calls to DirecTV, the rest of the preseason was available. But for those of us on the West Coast who were not at home at 3 p.m. on that weekday to watch Sidney Crosby's return to the Maritimes, that did not do us much good.

As a TSN host said during Wednesday night's NHL telecasts, the entire country of Canada would be talking about the thrilling 2-1 semi-final win for Canada. Meanwhile, ESPNews did not find it fit to even give the score of the game, never mind highlights.

With media coverage like this, it is no wonder the World Juniors do not catch on in the United States. Canadian fans know how great this tournament is, and so does the far more hockey-friendly Canadian media. American fans who go through the effort understand the greatness of the World Juniors, but they are in the minority.

Do not blame the fans. Blame the media -- the American-based media, that is, for ignoring this tournament -- it truly is their fault.