Rogers does have pre-emptive troubleshooting for their boxes.

1) If the box is getting a high error rate or a signal that is out of spec, it will report this condition to the head office. It may still be operating perfectly, but slightly out-of-spec conditions will still trigger this.

2) If the box is unable to communicate back to the head office, after a while the head office will add it to a list for a tech to come out and find why (unplugged, behind a one-way amplifier, etc).

As for programming packages, these are determined solely by information sent through the cable signal to your specific box ID. They don't need a tech to come out to remove a single HD channel, they just "hit" the box with updated information (which also happens routinely on a schedule). It doesn't have to hear any response from the box, this is a 1-way thing.

I subscribe to both HDTV tiers so it's hard for me to tell if Sportsnet HD is actually free or not, but I *seem* to recall some mention a little while ago that everything but the basic US/Canadian networks were being moved to the second tier. But I could be wrong.

If this IS the case and the change happened recently, it may be that the tech triggered an update hit on your box when he came out. It also could be that they were offering you all HDTV channels for a free trial period.