A new contender for worst broadcaster of all time (Leah Hextall)

[Holocene]

she fits right in with most of the pbp commentators i’ve heard then

Particularly by women.

Has there been a female announcer that hasn't had a "worst announcer ever" thread at some point? There's a lot of cringey local broadcasts that don't get a peep here.

Like this apparently is not threadworthy?

Mishkin was the first dude to come to mind like how is she worse than this guy lmao

 

[hirawl]

I actually quite liked her. English not being my mother tongue maybe has something to do with it. Hard to say. I also think her voice was EQd not to sound so shrill this time.

 

[abo9]

I actually quite liked her. English not being my mother tongue maybe has something to do with it. Hard to say. I also think her voice was EQd not to sound so shrill this time.

I wated the Ducks/NJ game yesterday and did not mind at all, except that it's quite different than the usual male voices. I guess she'll have to contains the shrieks a bit when a team score haha but I mean she sounds excited.

What made me raise an eyebrow though is... Hextall, I've heard that name before haven't I?

Oh yeah she's the grand-daughter of a hall of famer and the cousin of Ron Hextall... hockey sure is a tight knit and closwd community

 

[JasonRoseEh]

People will probably get mad at this but whatever; are there any good female hockey announcers? If there is I haven't heard one and every single one on major broadcasts absolutely stinks at it. They have zero emotion in it which is ironic...

 

[MuckOG]

Other than her apparently not being a man, what exactly is wrong with this call? I'm not hearing it.

People are acting like the pitch of her voice is ridiculously high. It really isn't. I've heard plenty of broadcasters who have a dorky yell when a team scores.

The pitch of her voice is what's wrong...it is ridiculously high. And yes, there are plenty of broadcasters that also have bad voices for PBP.

 

[r0bert8841]

I liked her the one game I watched. The only announcers I don't like are the really biased ones though. Otherwise, who really cares.

 

[Eggtimer]

Are people saying they don’t mind her PxP tone deaf ?
I cannot possibly understand how a person can honestly enjoy her voice …
Everything about her calling a game is terrible. her pitch and tone , her ability to see and react to the play going on, mistaking players and not knowing what team they are on. Butchering players names and on and on.
She is a terrible terrible play by play announcer.

 

[Captain97]

Ignoring the idea of whether or not she was hired because broadcasters want more women calling and breaking down games.

Surely there are plenty of women who could do the job decently or better, in this case I'm more concerned about the blatant nepotism than the diversity hire.

She is terrible.

 

[WillTheThrill]

Had no clue who she was as I live in Canada. Looked her up on twitter and I think my ears are bleeding after hearing this

 

[Bandit]

Hahahahah

Solid contribution. Brief, yet pointless.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

I think she's shown some definite improvement, and altered her tone/pitch a bit, just from a few weeks ago. Big learning curve here, so if ESPN is serious about this I hope they give her (and us) a good full season to adapt and adjust before pulling the plug.

 

[All Mighty]

What I couldn't believe was how she seemed to get confused on which team was which. In the 2nd period, it was like the teams switching sides threw her off somehow. She said Gibson was Bernier, she also inexplicably said Lettieri was Severson, for no other reason than they are both #28. I get that mixing up players on the same team happens, but mixing up which players are on what team is pretty egregious to me.

 

[Chimpradamus]

The pitch of her voice is what's wrong...it is ridiculously high. And yes, there are plenty of broadcasters that also have bad voices for PBP.

Exactly. I mean, has anyone heard Rick Jeanneret? He's bloody awful. Sabres fans love him from connection, passion and history to the entertainment franchise I guess. He's knowledgable, well fared in the momentum of the game, he has alot of qualities, but... his voice is so awful. When he explodes, it's a fork against porcelain. Same with Hextall. It cuts you off and you would rather choose game sound and absolute silence in this moment, 100%.

The absolute same thing for me. That Hextall is terrible in actual commentating isn't that horrible for me, it's her grating voice. And yeah, her flow, momentum and everything is very poor from the start compared to Jeanneret. He's more like Jeanneret's daughter than Hextall's when it comes to commentating. Unbearable.

Other than her apparently not being a man, what exactly is wrong with this call? I'm not hearing it.

People are acting like the pitch of her voice is ridiculously high. It really isn't. I've heard plenty of broadcasters who have a dorky yell when a team scores.

Do you need examples of Rick Jeanneret? You know who he is. Same, but she's only just worse in everything as well. Congratulations, she can have a career as a skilled, national misfit not suited for her job, only starting up much worse at everything than the regional master of forks against porcelain. At least Jeanneret was a regional misfit. Which fanbase will support her disability having a shit voice as a commentator nation wide? None. A small percentage.

She cannot handle the entire spectrum of emotions through a game with power and dignity. End of story. When there's a crucial goal she sounds like a dying giraffe. Jeanneret sounds like an abused giraffe.

So why will she keep her job regardless of what hockey fans desire and want? Because she's a woman, the true privileged sex in PC 2021. Untouchable. We will just have to have her destroy games because she's a natural victim systematically demanding special treatment, *sob*. Poor, poor, unprivileged daughter of Hextall, such a victim, *sob*.

 

[Leviathan899]

She’s almost as bad as Jennifer Botterill

Botterill will go down in the hall of fame for one of the worst of all time. It’s incredible how much she sucks

 

[Oleksiak]

Exactly. I mean, has anyone heard Rick Jeanneret? He's bloody awful. Sabres fans love him from connection, passion and history to the entertainment franchise I guess. He's knowledgable, well fared in the momentum of the game, he has alot of qualities, but... his voice is so awful. When he explodes, it's a fork against porcelain. Same with Hextall. It cuts you off and you would rather choose game sound and absolute silence in this moment, 100%.

The absolute same thing for me. That Hextall is terrible in actual commentating isn't that horrible for me, it's her grating voice. And yeah, her flow, momentum and everything is very poor from the start compared to Jeanneret. He's more like Jeanneret's daughter than Hextall's when it comes to commentating. Unbearable.

Do you need examples of Rick Jeanneret? You know who he is. Same, but she's only just worse in everything as well. Congratulations, she can have a career as skilled, national misfit, only starting up much worse at everything than the master of forks against porcelain. At least Jeanneret was a regional misfit. Which fanbase will support her disability having a shit voice as a commentator? None.

So why will she keep her job regardless of what hockey fans desire and want? Because she's a woman, the true privileged sex in PC 2021. Untouchable. We will just have to have her destroy games because she's a natural victim systematically demanding special treatment, *sob*.

Jeanneret is one of the best to ever do it, and I'm not a Sabres fan.

 

[Chimpradamus]

Jeanneret is one of the best to ever do it, and I'm not a Sabres fan.

Then again, you're used to Jack Edwards (quite good actually, just a bit too crazy, like Boston wants it). Probably grown up in Boston. Bill Burr has explained it to me how it is to grow up there, you're excused from any accusations from me. It's just who you are from your history.

 

[405Entrance]

There’s nothing she can do about her voice, but she should seriously consider studying up on teams she’s going to cover. She kept calling the ducks the devils and kept calling gibson, bernier I don’t know how many times I kept catching her getting names completely wrong

 

[MuckOG]

Jeanneret is one of the best to ever do it, and I'm not a Sabres fan.

His high pitched "SCORE" is like fingernails on a chalkboard.

 

[GOilers88]

Had no clue who she was as I live in Canada. Looked her up on twitter and I think my ears are bleeding after hearing this

I just can't understand what it is she actually said after Getzlaf.

"ShakfkoejdbakwoekSCORES!"

 

[kp61c]

Had no clue who she was as I live in Canada. Looked her up on twitter and I think my ears are bleeding after hearing this

sounds like an angry cat.

 

[Chips]

Particularly by women.

Has there been a female announcer that hasn't had a "worst announcer ever" thread at some point? There's a lot of cringey local broadcasts that don't get a peep here.

Like this apparently is not threadworthy?

Hire him to a national team and you’ll hear about him more. Same with Craig Laughlin, make him the National color guy and you’ll hear about him constantly like you heard endlessly about Pierre for his preferred subject matter (informing us of every individual players college history about 100 times over the course of their career)

when people make threads for local broadcast teams, you see Laughlin and some others get shit on almost unanimously, but almost nobody has to hear him almost ever. You almost always have a choice in broadcast if it’s not National broadcast, if you’re using an online stream (whether official or not). If you want to watch the National broadcast for whatever reason, you’re stuck with her and people will wonder why their preferred experienced person, or basically anyone else, didn’t get the job instead.


I can’t speak for others but I don’t think she would be bad at all if they just shifted her to color analyst, the importance of her voice sound, the shrill 14 year olds yell would be irrelevant, and I’m sure she knows hockey. I don’t have an issue with female voices in general, or their opinions on the game assuming they actually know the players and teams, but at least if they know what “pass” and “shoot” is they can do instant analysis of a play; and or if she were to do her own pre/post game show or co host the intermission with more responsibility (like the difference between Liam M on nbc vs tnt) rather than just looking pretty and passing off the conversation she’d be fine



far as the Sabres guy, idk if people are mainly talking about him recently or ever, because I’ve heard old calls of his pre-cancer and don’t think he was as bad. I totally get it now but I can see why the team/fans would give him a pass

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

I'm convinced every one bitching about the "pitch" of Hextall's voice is using shitty speakers

 

[Canadian Finn]

for sure.

it's not the voice...it's the speakers.

convinced.

 

[Ringmaster]

Had no clue who she was as I live in Canada. Looked her up on twitter and I think my ears are bleeding after hearing this

Funny because she's Canadian

 

[Chips]

for sure.

it's not the voice...it's the speakers.

convinced.

80-85% of HF, Twitter users, and YouTube views must all have identical speakers, settings etc