TORONTO - Many dedicated Pan Am fans are panning CBC's live coverage of the Games.

"I expected a channel with lots of stuff going on. It's ridiculous," Miles Gibson grumbled by phone from Edmonton on Monday. "It's the worst coverage I have ever seen."

Gibson and other sports fans took to Twitter and CBC's own website to express disappointment with live online streams and largely pre-packaged TV broadcasts from venues across southern Ontario.

"Why can I not see the rowing teams finals live stream? Beach volleyball is on all morning," bemoaned WhatsAllThisThen, a poster to the comments section of panam.cbc.ca .

Justine Mossman of Whitby, Ont., said it's especially frustrating since Canada seems to be having an impressive showing at these Games, considered the largest international multisport event ever held in Canada.

The 26-year-old has been following the medal haul on the Pan Am website but said she's frustrated whenever she turns on CBC-TV hoping to witness the wins herself.

"Our Canadian athletes are doing so very well and you want to be able to watch and cheer them on and there's just no live coverage to be found," complained Mossman, who said she had difficulty getting a smooth online stream and prefers TV.

"Obviously, the Pan Am Games are nowhere near as big as the Olympics are so I didn't expect wall-to-wall coverage. But I expected more than what they're doing."

CBC is offering TV coverage up to three times a day, including a mix of live and pre-packaged highlights mostly two-to-three hours in length. That's augmented by more than 650 hours of live streaming on its digital platforms.

But several marquee moments have not been available live to fans, including Canada's first medal of the Games — a gold in women's kayaking on Saturday morning.

Then there was the silver medal that Canadian flag-bearer Mark Oldershaw nabbed in men's canoeing on Monday, when former Olympic champion kayaker Adam van Koeverden also collected a bronze.

A CBC publicist said the race was not purposefully omitted — the network is at the mercy of the Pan Am Games' host broadcaster, a group that decides which video streams are made available to media outlets around the world. Canoeing simply wasn't available Monday.

CBC led its 3 p.m. coverage with footage from Oldershaw and van Koeverden's wins and interviews with the racers.

CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said there is only so much the network can provide.

"It's impossible to provide live coverage of all of the events," said Keay, chief of staff with the office of the executive vice-president, English services.

"This is an enormous event. We are actually providing unprecedented coverage compared to previous Pan Am Games."

Keay said fans seeking live coverage can also get their fix from a broadcast partnership with Sportsnet, which has shown live soccer.

"You do the best you can with the resources you have," said Keay, a reference to the CBC's well-publicized budget woes.

Other sports fans inundated Triathlon Canada's Facebook page with complaints they couldn't see the men's or women's competitions live on the weekend.

Triathlon Canada responded by saying there are many sports at the Games "in the same situation as us."

"Unfortunately due to limited resources, CBC was not able to televise our races live or stream them. We will continue to work with our Olympic broadcast partners to strengthen our coverage on the Road to Rio (Olympics). We appreciate all of your concerns on this, and we too wish our races were able to be streamed live, but we are not alone."

Some athletes are also disappointed in the coverage.

"We always want more exposure, so it's too bad that you can't watch it online," said canoeist Ben Russell, who won gold in the C-2 1,000-metre race with Gabriel Beauchesne-Sevigny.

"A lot of other regattas have come a long way and had good coverage, and hopefully it keeps trending that way."

Oldershaw said it was disappointing but he sympathized with the CBC's challenge.

"There are so many sports, I guess it's hard to get everything on TV," said Oldershaw. "I guess they're trying to encourage people to go out and see it live, and I guess with the Internet, it's so easy to follow stuff online now."

Mossman said she'll get her live fix by actually going to a track and field event next week.

"I'm a big fan of Damian Warner, our decathlete," she said. "I doubt it'll be on TV so I'll go and see it live."

— With files from Lori Ewing

News from © The Canadian Press, 2015