DETROIT – Does hockey come across better in person or on television? Used to be, no argument, it was best to be at the rink. But in the high-definition era, with a highly talented production crew, you can make a case for TV, too.

To compare and contrast the experiences, I rounded up two old hockey buddies Wednesday night and we bought seats for $47 each in the upper corner near the ceiling of Joe Louis Arena to see the Red Wings lose, 3-2, to the Boston Bruins in an overtime shootout.

From there, I went straight home to watch the video recording of the telecast on the NBC Sports Network, with the announcing of Mike Emrick, Eddie Olczyk and Pierre McGuire backed by the network's first-string production crew.

Both approaches have their pros and cons.

At The Joe, you soak in the whole pre-game experience. First, a light meal at a bar within walking distance, then the buzz of anticipation in the streets as all those burly people in jerseys flow toward the river and stride briskly up the many steps of the old, gray barn.

Inside, everybody's selling something amid lots of loud laughter. When you reach your seats, you find a few empty gaps in the back rows, and some of the sold ones are to the Bruins fans. The sounds in the rink are a mixed blessing.

When an exciting play builds, and a scoring chance forms, the volume swells to a crest of shouts and yells until a shriek – usually a woman's voice – punctuates perfectly with a high note the moment of the goal or the save. That never comes across on television. You have to be there. It's really visceral.

On the downside, after a whistle and especially during a timeout, the speaker system attacks your ears with promotional pollution and sometimes annoying music and makes it difficult to talk to anyone near you. At least with television, you can turn down this noise or the commercials. And if a penalty is called before the timeout entertainment, why not announce the penalty to the fans BEFORE the extra junk?

That way, it would not feel so disjointed. On TV, Emrick gives the penalty information BEFORE going to commercials. The arena announcements should use this same common sense.

For those accustomed to good video replays at home, the screens at the Joe seem small and fuzzy, quite hard to see from the back rows. And they show only one look at the goal, not nearly enough. That part could be immediately improved. For better screens, we'll have to wait for the new building.

TV can show you things you didn't even notice at the game. One was the puck that hit Boston assistant coach Doug Houda on the head, cutting him for several stitches, which NBC cameras showed in closeup. We sat on the other side of the building from all this and I never noticed it until I got home. McGuire was right next to it and gave a snappy report and video of the stitches.

One of the reasons American hockey telecasting has improved so much -- particularly on NBC -- is the adaptation of the Canadian consciousness of less-is-more. During live action, they use the side cameras with a minimum of cutting to closeups, corner shots or end-zone views.

And when they do cut to the closeups, the directors seem to know the game well enough to anticipate what might come next and when it is wise to cut back to a wider view.

They don't use those overrated over-the-net cameras except for replays when they actually help illustrate subtle details. Just before overtime, NBC showed a definitive montage from high above the crease of great saves by Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard late in the game.

Another striking difference between in person and on screen was the presence of Zdeno Chara. At the rink, the big Boston defenseman bulled about the crease of Howard, earning the booing of the crowd (which, truth be told, would love to have a guy like him wearing the winged wheel).

But on TV, you didn't hear the booing as much and you got a more vulnerable side of Chara when you saw the tremendous black eye on the right side of his face.

"Friendly fire," Emrick said of wound suffered in practice. From my seat at the Joe Wednesday night, I could see Chara's eyes but not the shiner.

Emrick, a sophisticated wordsmith, is the Vin Scully of this sport. He controls the tempo of the conversation and, during live action, talks directly to the viewer like an old-fashioned radio play-by-play man.

Olczyk and McGuire understand their roles well and rarely talk over each other or Emrick, a neat trick in that McGuire is in a remote location between the benches.

McGuire's witty. He referred to Chara screening the goalie as "a lunar eclipse." And McGuire got a better-than-expected timeout interview with Detroit coach Mike Babcock early on. When McGuire asked about Wings' speed, Babcock said "It's hard to be fast when you're chasing the puck. They're hungrier than we are."

I couldn't hear that conversation in Section 204A, Row 22, Seat Five. But I did hear plenty of discussion among the three of us about Stanley Cups won in the 1990s, fights in the 1980s, lousy teams of the 1970s and Olympia Stadium in the 1960s. We gazed at all those red and white banners and retired jerseys that you probably didn't see on TV and enjoyed the heck out of just where we were.

Joe Lapointe is a sports columnist for MLive.com. He is a 20-year veteran of the New York Times sports department, 11-year veteran of the Detroit Free Press, and a Detroit native.