The Athletic ranks the NHL local TV broadcasters - Carolina #1 - Boston #31

[tarheelhockey]

Jack Edwards was calling Bruins games when Joe Thornton was on the team...

Edwards has called 15 seasons, and only 2 of those were below .500 — his first 2 seasons.

How he would react to narrating a truly bad team after 13 years is an interesting question.

 

[Vijo Morganstein]

Jack Edwards is one of, if not the best commentators in the league, and I say that as a Montreal fan. If people want to complain about homerism, watch an Arizona game some time and listen to what real homerism sounds like.

 

[Canes]

Jack Edwards is one of, if not the best commentators in the league, and I say that as a Montreal fan. If people want to complain about homerism, watch an Arizona game some time and listen to what real homerism sounds like.

Edwards commentates games like he's vicariously living through the Bruins after getting stuffed into lockers all his life. He probably wouldn't be so intolerable if not for that.

 

[wintersej]

Laughable that they rank Edwards last. Invalidates the whole list to me.

Jeff Rimer of the Bluejackets is going to be Joe Biden's roommate at the Dementia home. He's completely incompetent. Edwards is completely biased but he's competent.

The list is about the TOTAL experience. NESN thinks a good experience is covering 20% of the screen with ads for NESN.

 

[wintersej]

Edwards has called 15 seasons, and only 2 of those were below .500 — his first 2 seasons.

How he would react to narrating a truly bad team after 13 years is an interesting question.

Thats fair.

 

[Dr Black]

Butch Goring and Cassie Campbell Pascal are the worst color commentators. For that reason alone, it would be fair to put the NY Islanders and Calgary Flames at the bottom.

 

[Cyclones Rock]

The list is about the TOTAL experience. NESN thinks a good experience is covering 20% of the screen with ads for NESN.

That is crap. Advertising is out of control in that case.

I stand with my original statement. The CBJ announcer and Grand Pierre are both pathetic. Jody Shelley is ok. Edwards is far better than this team.

 

[Cyclones Rock]

Butch Goring and Cassie Campbell Pascal are the worst color commentators. For that reason alone, it would be fair to put the NY Islanders and Calgary Flames at the bottom.

Calagary's broadcasts are miserable.

 

[wintersej]

That is crap. Advertising is out of control in that case.

I stand with my original statement. The CBJ announcer and Grand Pierre are both pathetic. Jody Shelley is ok. Edwards is far better than this team.

to be clear, I'm exaggerating when I say 20%, but a more than 2x normal height ticker during game play is pretty awful

 

[LuckyDay]

What about games broadcast in Punjabi or Inuktitut?

 

[TheOtherOne]

Damn. I cannot realistically rank because I don't watch other teams, but I'm stunned DRW are so low. I and everyone I know love Ken and Mickey.

 

[JoeThorntonsRooster]

This little tidbit is delicious, thank you

What is the point of this post?

 

[Our Lady Peace]

If Ottawa gets any combo of Gord Miller or Chris Cuthbert and Ray Ferraro or Mike Johnson, they're #1 to me. If it's Gord and Ray, they're #1 AINEC.

 

[aufheben]

Boston has one of my favorite broadcasts tbh.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

John Forslund is excellent, but Tripp Tracy drags him down quite a bit. I think the #1 team should be one whose PBP guy and color commentator are top notch.

Vegas' broadcast is atrocious. I understand they're probably not taking the sleazy commercials into account here, but even then, there's no chance in hell that they're deserving of this ranking.

San Jose's broadcast might be worthy of this ranking if it literally never featured Jamie Baker (or Kendall Coyne Schofield), but as it stands I don't even think they're in the top half of the league.

Lastly, I don't understand why Toronto and Ottawa are so far apart when they share a lot of the same guys. I'd personally have Toronto's broadcast much higher as I really like Hughson.

Not a fan of the ambulance chasers they have during VGK commercial breaks?

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Have a feeling pens low ranking is based on reputation due to years and years of Steigerwald. Mears isn't nearly as homerish.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

This is an interesting take haha. As a Devils fan, of course I love Chico, but his commentary, especially in the later years on Tv, was pure homerism and not particularly insightful IMO. He was basically the drunk uncle that everyone loved and just shook off his outlandish comments.

Daneyko and Chico are probably both the same level of eloquence when speaking and of course Daneyko can go on his biased rants too, but I think he also has plenty of moments of being incredibly insightful...much moreso than Chico.

Could not possibly disagree more. Daneyko can be insightful when he's assessing defenseman, but doesn't offer much on the rest of the play. Chico was excitable, but it was always fun. Dano trips over his words a few times a sentence.

And this isn't popular, but I don't think Sal is great between the boards either.

 

[NoShowWilly]

If Ottawa gets any combo of Gord Miller or Chris Cuthbert and Ray Ferraro or Mike Johnson, they're #1 to me. If it's Gord and Ray, they're #1 AINEC.

Yup that'd be #1 for me.

 

[Stephen]

22. Toronto Maple Leafs
The broadcast: It’s complicated. TSN and Sportsnet split the regional broadcast rights, and the Maple Leafs are also a fixture on the Canadian national broadcast schedule. Few hockey fans see as irregular a stream of commentators.

• Sportsnet national (“Hockey Night in Canada”): Jim Hughson on play-by-play, Craig Simpson on colour;
• Sportsnet regional: John Bartlett on play-by-play, Greg Millen on colour;
• TSN regional: Gord Miller/Chris Cuthbert rotate play-by-play, Ray Ferraro on colour.

Not sure why Toronto is ranked as 22nd when the quality of Bartlett and Millen would rank 32nd in a 31 team league, while Miller and Cuthbert are pretty excellent, more so due to Cuthbert and Ferraro, and Hughson and Simpson is also quite good despite being anti-Leafs in the past. It's like a very wide spectrum of high end broadcast and cable access.

 

[crassbonanza]

Surprised to see the Kings ranked so high because in my opinion the broadcast has been horrible the past few seasons and it seems to be getting worse.

Faust is a pretty bad, he has a bland personality with a voice to match and he relies on the same few sayings that he repeats 5 times a game. Him and Fox lack chemistry as broadcast partners, they do seem to enjoy each others company though when they spend 10 minutes straight chatting about random nonsense.

You can tell by the FSW intermission segments that they are trying to trick people who don't watch hockey into accidentally tuning in. They give us riveting segments such as riding horses with Teddy Purcell or looking at a random dog. Anything to avoid showing highlights from around the league or even the game at hand.

I watched pretty much the whole season with the TV on mute this year because the broadcast was honestly aggravating.

 

[Hockeyplayer99]

This actually goes on to say that the poll for NYR was actually hijacked by Islander fans hence they were down to 13th.

Islanders 11th, Butch Goring is very Boring

 

[bouncesonly]

I feel they should have had 3 polls.

PBP
Color
Announcer team as a whole

They had two polls. The first asking local viewers to rate their local broadcast from a scale of very poor to very good, they averaged this number to create a rank. The second poll asked the local viewers to pick 5 out-of-town broadcasts that were very poor, and 5 that were very good.....those numbers were averaged and a rank was created. The combined averages of the local and out of town ranks were used to create the overall ranking posted by the OP.

For example, Colorado fans voted their local broadcast to be the worst, 31st. Everyone else voted Colorado's broadcast to be the 24th. This combined average placed them 27th overall. As you can imagine, the non-local viewers voted Boston for being the worst broadcast.

Best local broadcast voted by locals: Carolina
Best local broadcast voted by non-locals: Carolina

The average(ish) local broadcast voted by locals (15th/16th): Ottawa/Washington
The average(ish) local broadcast voted by non-locals (15th/16th): LA/NYI

Worst local broadcast voted by locals: Colorado
Worst local broadcast voted by non-locals: Boston

If we look at the differentials, positive differential being non-locals voted the local broadcasts much higher than the locals did, the top 5 are all occupied by Canadian teams:

Winnipeg	26
Montreal	18
Toronto	17
Edmonton	10
Ottawa	9

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

And negative differentials being the opposite, locals voted the local broadcast higher than non-locals, there's only 1 Canadian team:

Tampa Bay	-12
Anaheim	-13
Florida	-14
Vancouver	-14
Detroit	-16

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

The most "self-aware" group are:

Chicago	2
Carolina	0
San Jose	0
Columbus	0
Nashville	0
New Jersey	-2
Calgary	-2
Minnesota	-2

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[HF007]

I think washington should be higher, i find they give good attention and not too bias

 

[Rogue Leader]

Nope. this is not true. Just because of the Boston accent ... Boston is amazing!
And as a Leaf fan I can say we should be bottom 3. Only good thing is our anthem singer (when on the screen).
Love that a bunch of jerks won! Deserved win!

 

[bouncesonly]

a) I don't like this title because it's super click bait-y.

How in the hell is the title "super click bait-y"? The Athletic LITERALLY ranked the local NHL broadcast.