The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 50: Ranking All 30 Local Broadcast Teams

Episode Date: January 15, 2016

Much like we did when we ranked all 30 teams based on their "watchability" earlier in the season, we put together a subjective list of the best and worst local broadcasts out there. Points were given for creativity, enthusiasm, and the ability to provide us as viewers with interesting nuggets of information which we otherwise wouldn't be privy to. We ultimately didn't dock points for being a homer, unless constantly wearing rose-coloured glasses interferes with your ability to point out obvious faults with the team you're covering. We count them down, from worst to first. Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, and can also be streamed from our website. Make sure to not only subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new shows as they’re released, but also take a minute to leave us a glowing review. If you’ve been enjoying the work we’ve been doing please also consider chipping in to help support the show (www.hockeypdocast.com/donate). There are a handful of housekeeping costs associated with producing the show that need to be covered, and every little bit helps. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl defensive end, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and of course the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

These days, everything is go, go, go. It's nonstop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold-packaged. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. It is literally made to chill.

Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Travis Yost and Dimitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocat. My name is Dimitra Volovich.

And joining me is Travis Yost. Travis, what's going on, man? We started this by you telling me that you had to watch this NBA game tonight. And I'm concerned that you're becoming more like me. And my response actually was, what? Cavs, spurs are playing tonight? Didn't even know that. So we have flipped rolls, apparently, for the first, this last 24 hours.

I was eating Subway for lunch today. So I know that. Oh, yeah. Now we're fully there. Hey, we should mention this is our 50th show, which, you know, it might not necessarily be as impressive as anything of Etchkin or again, I've done this season. But I did hear down the grapevine that Wayne Gretzky is going to be recording a quick little congratulatory video for us. Yeah. How about that?

Is the whole family going to do? Is Paulina and Dustin and everyone going to join in? Yep. I actually don't think he's going to be doing that because I'm pretty sure there's a, if you go, dig it up. There's an old Travisios post that said, man, Wayne Gretzky might have been the worst coach of the modern era. So maybe not him. Well, I mean,

do you honestly think Wayne Gretzky thinks he did a good job with the coyotes? Like, I bet if you asked him, he, but I thought I was okay. Yeah, I mean, things didn't go my way, but... Yeah, it was not good. All right, before we, uh, we're going to do a fun little show today, but before we get into that,

let's talk a little bit about this, uh, this Copartar news. Um, I guess it's not even really news. It's a testament to, we had that like one day where it was a flurry of trades and then we're back to our thing where it's big news when it's reported that a star player is finalizing his deal. He's working on it. They're working night and day to figure out the terms, but it sounds like he's going to do an eight-year, $10 million deal. I think we're pretty much in an agreement that that's a fair deal for the Kings, right? Yeah, and it's going to be front-loaded. So they're going to be

paying big for the years where he is an elite centerman and they're probably going to be paying a lot less in the years when he starts to taper off. I think there's, as is the case with any of these contracts of players who are in their late 20s version of the 30, I think there is always the question of how much risk are you assuming on the back end of the deal and is it worth it net for the front, you know, the front end years to pay player big dollar. And I think, I think that's an interesting question with changing parameters or changing goalposts depending on where you're at right now. And the reason why I say that is, I, I don't know that that deal would make so much sense for a team that was obviously either rebuilding or kind of a fringe team, whereas I think it probably makes a lot more sense when you are a bona fide Stanley Cup contender for, I think this is the fourth or fifth year in a row.

So, you know, again, even if things go south in L.A. a few years down the road, I still think you're looking at least a two or three year window. and that's the accounting super conservative approach to that. I can't see that team kind of falling back so ridiculously in the next two or three years. I'm pretty sure they're going to be in contention for the most of that Copatar contract. Really the interesting thing about the Copatar deal was they announced that they're hammering out, front-loaded deal, et cetera, et cetera. And then like three hours later, I hear that L.A. is going to make a big push for making a big, big push to retain Milan Lucchich. I just,

does Lombardi think that they have $100 million in gap space going forward? Like, there's no way that can be done, right? I mean, it's just impossible. Well, okay, so this is hilarious because I was looking at this in five years from now, and obviously a lot can happen between now and then, but let's say they are agreed to this deal with Kobartar. They're going to have like nearly $35 million tied up in Kopitur who's going to be 33, Quick, who's going to be 35, Carter, who's 36, Dustin Breyer.

round 36 and Gabrick 39. And I don't know if Dean Lombardi is going to get any of these guys to carry something for him while he crosses the border or something like that. But it'll basically either be that or they're just hoping that an expansion draft is going to kind of let them wash their hands of some of these deals. But like it's one of those situations where you just look at it and you wonder, okay, if they also sign Milan Luchich, who's rapidly approaching 30 years old to a long-term deal and probably won't age well based on the type of player he is.

like it's one of those things where I'm sure Dean Lombardi's kind of counting down the days and looking at looking into the future and being like all right maybe five years from now I'm just going to ride off into the sunset with my four or five Stanley Cup rings and just not really worry about this thing and just whoever takes over is is kind of screwed yeah um so I think most GMs follow a similar path of and this is the one thing that I think everyone struggles with is that sometimes what we and that's why I think we're the value of like people who write and pay attention do a lot of quantitative analysis.

And I think that's where their value can be had for front offices who are so short-sighted for obvious reasons. Like if you're a GM, you care about your job security now. You don't care about it five years from now in a sport where there's just such ridiculous turnover. We've seen executives and coaches termed when their team gets kicked out in the second round because in three prior years they had been a conference finalist. There's something to that effect.

Right. Yeah. So you pretty much, unless you're, in that vaunted group of Babcock-Quonaville in the coaching department or one of the very few GMs who is Teflon. For the most part, you're basically working for your job every single year. And you might have a year buffer, a down year, depending on how much you've built up in equity. But this to me seems like a classic case of, yeah, our windows now. We're going to contend now.

We're going to do everything now. And five years from now, screw it, we'll rebuild. then maybe I probably won't even be here. And you know what? Like in some ways, I can at least recognize. Like here's the other thing about this. Like I will take a chance on Kopitar. If he goes south, he goes south.

It's deals like Dustin Brown. They're going to kill this team. It's not the Kopitar contract. And the John Quick contract is another thing. But like the Kopitar deal with it goes south, you are still pretty confident. Like the idea is we're paying a ton of money and we're going to get one of the five best centers in the world.

to at least be one of the five best centers in the world for four years of this contract. And like, I don't, that's why I don't understand if you apply that same Washington, Dustin Brown, like, what percentage of a top winger in the world is Dustin Brown? Like, is he in the top 40? He's in their fourth line right now, so probably not very high. Yeah, so, like, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's an important balance to strike when you're a GM weighing, like, yep, I need to keep my job, but at the same time, I don't want to sign these absolutely poisonous

this deal so that if I do sustain success, I'm going to screw myself because I'll be the one in the position of still running this team three years from now. Yeah, no, totally. That's well said. And one last thing on Brown, I remember earlier in the season, I was kind of writing up a thing about penalty differentials because Nazim Kadri was drawing penalties like a madman. And I was looking back five, six years down in the past.

And Dustin Brown's penalty differentials were absolutely insane there in like the late 2000s. He was like, just like the rate at which he was drawing penalties and kind of goading other teams into into putting the Kings in the power play was just obscene. And he was a really good player and he scored a bunch of goals. And it's, you know, what has it been like two years now where he's been very, very pedestrian. And I don't know what they're going to wind up doing with that. Like maybe they're going to just offload him on someone or I don't know who's going to take that contract. But I guess it's a concern for another day because as we talked about when we adopted them recently, they're one of the very best teams in the league. let's let's do our fun little project now we were going to do a ranking of the 30 local broadcast

team sort of like when we did our game center live watchability rankings and i think it's we should probably just go from 30 to one i guess that's kind of the best way so i i never prep for any of these things this was one instance where i gave it 10 minutes and kind of revisited how i thought about these broadcasts yeah i just i watch such a painful amount of hockey And one of the things, I've said this before, but one of the things I really try and do is I like to bounce around broadcasts. And I have a few preferential ones that I'll basically always watch because they're so good. But for the most part, I always like going around. Because the main reason why is you pick up kind of local tidbits on the local broadcast of teams that maybe aren't necessarily public.

And that's just the kind of nature of like guys having hot mics and talking for three hours and sometimes things slip out that maybe you weren't privy to or whatever the case may be. And the other part of that is if you really want to, let's say I haven't watched a devil's game in a week and a half and you want to get back up to speed a little bit with the devils. The idea is, okay, when we watch the devil's broadcast, not the blues who they're playing. Regardless, I try and strike a balance as much as possible. But the way I approach this is I separated them into five bins, bins one through five, because it was impossible. It's so difficult. I could do it, but it's so difficult to say this is the 27th best broadcast. And this is, it's very difficult thing to do. So what I did was I separated them into five bins, one through five, one being you are atrocious,

and five being you are either perfect or very close to perfect. And my methodology here was the vast majority of teams were going to be twos and threes and maybe a couple fours. But it would take an awful lot to be a one, and it would take an awful lot to be a five. Is that fair? No, it's definitely fair. There's extremes on both ends. And we should mention that, I mean, it's obviously like a super unscientific thing. and it's just very subjective, of course,

other people are going to have different opinions on us. But I think both of us are sort of an agreement that what we're looking for is an entertaining team, right? Yep, yep. So let me just caveat to that. The list is subjective, but I feel like the one through fives are going to be one through five-ish for everyone. It might be twos and fours,

but you're not telling me the groups that I have, the broadcast I have in group one or the broadcasts I have in group five. You're not telling me the one is actually good and the one is actually bad because I'm just going to tell you to go watch other broadcasts around the league. Like that, that to me is cut and dry. It's the middle that gets kind of murky.

Yeah, for sure. And I think in the middle there, there's a couple ones where I'm just like, I can't really tell you why I don't like this team, but for whatever reason, it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. And I completely understand that. That's not a very rational way to approach it,

but that's just how I feel when I listen to them. So we're looking for entertainment, and we're honestly just looking for, as you said, like little tidbits and nuggets on the team that they're covering on a daily basis. Like, tell me something that I can't, pick up from turning on this game and watching it for 30 seconds. Like whether it's something that happened in practice or whatever or just like

trends that have been going on. Some teams are really good at sort of bringing your attention towards certain things that people around the team have been telling them when they all hang out and see each other and whatnot. And that's that's kind of useful stuff. And that's what they're there for. Yeah, two additional things. I'll add it because I agree with everything you've said.

the two additional things is I don't care. There's a certain aspect to which I expect every local broadcast to be homerish, but at some point you start reaching diminishing returns and then I start docking you. So if there is a broadcast that is extremely homerific, they will probably get dinged a little bit. Not considerably so, though, because I expect they slant on every local broadcast. The other part of that would be the teams that, again, there's kind of echoing what you said about a couple of these broadcasts where you're like, I have no real idea. There's at least two of those teams where I just kind of threw them in the middle because I

don't have a strong opinion about them. But you kind of want to just run through and we'll just kind of see where we're at list to list wise. Let's start with the ones. I'm assuming your ones were the worst. My ones are the worst. And there's only, again, there's only three of them because I think it takes so much to get three as well.

This is huge. So it is in order. Don't tell them all three. Go for, give me one. I'll give you one and we'll see if we're in agreement and don't spoil the entire list. Okay. All right. Pittsburgh and Roots Sports.

Oh my God. Yeah. No, I think that's number 30 for me. The biggest knock on them is I learned nothing from watching them. They are extremely biased way beyond any kind of level that I would anticipate. They pretty much just follow every single narrative down the pipe. I, again, would echo I don't learn anything watching them. And a lot of the times I just find myself muting it.

I don't pick up anything from their intermissions. I basically actively avoid root sports. Yeah, I also can't stand how the one guy keeps calling the other guy Stygie. Oh, yeah, Bob Berry. Yeah, it just drives me crazy. And yeah, no, it's a perfect example of how like diminishing returns with the homerism where I remember I was watching a game against the Caps a few weeks back. And T.J. Oshy lays this clean hit on Bo Bennett.

And unfortunately, it's sort of near the boards. And Bo Bennett goes crashing in and injures his shoulder because he's made of glass. And they just go on a rant for like five. minutes about how T.J. Oshy broke the rules by extending his arms following through on the check. And I was like, I'm pretty sure that's a rule in basketball where you can't extend your arms. But like in hockey, I think you're actually allowed to do that. It's called a body check. So the other thing is that there's a few other elements to this that I don't want to, I don't want to get it to like specific person bashing as much as possible. But they over the years, I always feel like they know which way the wind is blowing.

and then when the wind blows in that direction, that's the narrative that they chase and punt down the broadcast time and time again. So if you're starting to feel heat about coaching, they will just constantly, constantly dial up. Yeah, coaching may be an issue or something to that effect. So basically, I don't really think they have an original thought for themselves. I'm pretty sure that they're told what to say. It's almost robotic in that nature. Yeah. Okay, we're in agreement there.

One of the teams in this bin for me is the altitude sports team. Yes. I mean, there's three words to describe Altitude Sports, and it is state-run media. Again, if you want to watch a broadcast, and they would be dead last in this ranking, if you want to watch a broadcast where you would think a team is a Stanley Cup contender, watch Alitude and watch a Colorado Avalanche broadcast, because, first off, it's either they're playing great or everything's going against them randomly and unlucky, and they can't buy a break, and they can't get a bounce.

And it's the, this is the part that really kills me because Colorado's just been so objectively bad for years now. And it's like the level of complaints, which are actually levied versus the ones that probably should be the ratio. I don't know. It's like one to eight. We've talked about this when we adopted Colorado back in November. But I mean, you can just go through any, any game that they play. And you'll see a number of just complete catastrophes in the defensive zone, just totally. defensive zone breakdowns. And like these are the types of things on other broadcasts where

teams might be similarly bad where a color analyst might step in and point out that, wow, this is comical that this player or this duo is out of position. But Haynes and McNabb, like I never, I never hear anything from them other than either Colorado's good or they talk about the other team. And it's, it's a real, and I get, I get it. You don't want to just continually destroy the front office because it's going to come back on you at some point. But I would expect a little bit more criticism for a team that's just been bad for three coming up on three years now. Right. Yeah. They're just like turning their head the other way. And I remember one time I was watching a game and it was in the middle of a really hot semi-in-verlamov run. And they said that

they saw it coming because they were watching him practice before the game and he was practicing very angry and he was very determined. And they definitely saw it coming. So and another thing was when they were hosting the Sends earlier in the season, they just couldn't stop marveling at how this particular Ottawa Senators team had had, had, had, buck the analytics trend and manage to keep winning games despite, despite losing the Shaw battle. And I was like, is this actually happening right now? Like the Colorado team who's been watching this particular Aves team flounder over the past year

and a half is like praising the Sends for doing the exact same thing. Like I just like, it's mind blowing to me. So I'm in total agreement there. So I'm curious to know we're going to go three for three, but my last one would be Anaheim. Yep. Oh, that was the one. Wow. We are, we are.

That's, that's another. It's just, it's just an objectively bad broadcast. For someone, I watch a lot of West Coast late night hockey and I'm sure we'll talk about them later, but you can watch an LA broadcast and an Anaheim broadcast and it's night and day. Again, I emphasize kind of like I did with Pittsburgh. I learned nothing from Anaheim broadcast. There's no takeaway that I don't see with my own eyes or catch from myself. There is zero entertainment value because there's an awful lot of complaining more than anything else on that broadcast.

it's just like a constant It's either everything's going great for Anaheim Or it's just complaining Complaining about officiating is The ratio of complaining to officiating on that broadcast Versus all other broadcasts They would be the top complaining broadcast in the league Although Roots Sports in Pittsburgh are pretty close

Yeah, no, I'm with you, they're brutal And I don't know We should talk about the whole Fox Sports thing Because obviously a lot of teams are broadcasted by them And I'm kind of torn because I love love the shot counter they have. I know I keep going on and on about this. You can't, you can't, you can't add any value to it ago because it's a broadcast thing and it exists on like 20 local feeds. So you can't give them bonus points for that. Well, I was going to say, I kind of give them

a few bonus points for that, but then I take them away because I can't stand that little jingle that plays every time they go into a commercial. Oh god, I can't stand it. So yeah, it's a, it has not changed in like seven years. So they cancel each other out. So yeah, no, I'm with you. Those are those are a pretty good bottom three. I feel like no one's going to be really able to poke any holes in those arguments. Okay. So my group of twos, and I'm just going to go down this list, and you tell me if any of them pop out, that would be exceptionally higher. I have Columbus, Detroit, Florida, New Jersey, Tampa Bay, Washington, Arizona, Calgary, Edmonton, Minnesota, St. Louis, and San Jose. I had Winnipeg in that group as well. really yeah all right we're going to disagree about that but all right so let me let me touch on a couple of these i the st louis broadcast is probably the one that could improve the most i can't stand

the constant interjections they know they they they would be the number one bro i keep doing this with each one but they would be the number one broadcast in constantly talking over one another and it's the whole point is to let the game breathe and then interject when you feel like you have value added comments right every time there's like a net mouth scramble or uh uh a breakout or a counterattack, it's, I hear like three different guys talking. It's so too many cooks.

It's, again, though, it seems so fixable because, like, I like the, I guess after the whistle stuff and I like the intermission stuff

on the St. Louis broadcast, but like in game, it's really bad and it's really annoyed. Yeah, and I agree. And there's a few teams you mentioned in there,

which I personally don't really have a strong opinion on. Like, for whatever reason, Tampa Bay, like, I just, like,

I can't really remember any memorable moments for them. And so maybe they should, shouldn't be like a four or five, but I guess a two or three is pretty reasonable for a team like Yeah, Rick Peckham's okay. I like Rick Peckham. He's a bit of a screamer. Like, it's a little over the top sometimes. And I guess I kind of feel the way about like Gus Johnson too. I like, I like when Gus Johnson's big and loud and good and then when he goes for the kill, it's like, ooh, dial it back a little. I don't know. It's a personal thing. The one that I had trouble with in

this group, so I remember I ranked these broadcasts like four years ago. And I actually sat down and gave it real, real deep thought. The broadcast I've probably dropped the most since doing that. I didn't check the actual math on it, but is probably Detroit. I feel like that broadcast has won south pretty quick. Yeah. Have you seen their like little, we're factoring in studio shows and whatnot too, right? Everything from the start from the pregame through the post game. So on away games, I think they have Chris Osgood in studio. And they do this like a hot, learning a hockey language or something like that segment. And like,

it's just like Chris Osgood sitting there and he like tells, I guess the viewers what like top shelf is and like sauce and like like dangle. And I'm like, is this really happening right now? Like Chris Osgood telling me what a dangle is. Like it's mind blowing that some old white guy was probably like, you know what? This is really riveting stuff that I think the people of Detroit want to want to listen to.

So yeah, it's one of those things where I don't really have. a really strong opinion either way on Detroit Broadcast team, but I'm totally cool with giving them a two just because of that segment. The Arizona broadcast has dropped off fairly considerably, but that's also because that they've lost one of the best play-by-play guys in the sport, and now I think they've got McConnell and Tyson Nash, and I find them, I have to say, I find them fairly entertaining. They don't call a good game, but I find them fairly entertaining. I do like, though, they seem to do a lot of, so this is, this is cheating, but they seem to do a lot

of stuff with like community and kids and I'm I'm always plus that um and I don't think it takes away from like the actual coverage or broadcast at all and they had a kid in there like three days ago and he came in and during the intermission break I think and he was talking to McConnell and Nash and he's talking about a story about how his father wanted him to go up and just clocked shamed when he was like six years old and I was like it's so great to me that the legacy is like even the father like I don't even know if he consciously did it or subconsciously said yeah I you go clock Shane down but I'm like I would bet half of the hockey population was like yeah that's a good idea yeah uh the kid was like six years old too and it was amazing um they do a lot of that

stuff and like that's i like that i think that's i'm always uh i always enjoy when i i see those types of things i don't think they take away from the broadcast much but i don't think they call a very good game either it's also super homerific the arizona broadcast and i in some ways i'm sympathetic because of the market and they want to build up everything about the coyotes but um it was interesting last year when the team was just, especially in the first half, when the team was just clearly bad and they still hadn't taken a turn for the worst. But I don't know, the way they talked about the team, it was like, let's be a little more realistic here. I really don't like, you mentioned the Columbus broadcast, right? Yeah. I'm just like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't,

I don't like Jodie and he just goes on these super random tangents about stuff that's ultimately meaningless. And I don't know, I've been watching them a bit recently. Like I, I think I've watched everyone in the last three games that Seth Jones has played for them. And I just wanted to see kind of what they were looking like and whatnot. And I just, I didn't learn anything from those broadcasts. So I definitely have them as a two. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. The Minnesota broadcast, again, it's a two.

It could have been a three. I have no real opinion about it. Yeah, I'm okay with the Minnesota broadcast. They're not bad. The San Jose broadcast, I didn't like the way they did a remanda. Yeah. Like, do I hold that against? I guess I do, right?

It is, yeah. Well, I mean, just in terms of it's a drop-off. Well, yeah, so that's fair. So I thought he was actually pretty good at what he did, and he's obviously working on the Edmonton broadcast now with Kevin Quinn. But I feel like he was very value-added in those Sharks games, especially when that Sharks team was humming along. He was really good at pointing out the little things they were doing right,

especially on the power play. And it was, I remember one of the things, before I even got into hockey stats, right as I was getting into hockey stats, like the San Jose power play, it always looked great to me, but he was identifying like certain ways they attacked the offensive zone

and attacked defenses trying to hold the blue line. And he was very good at pointing out subtleties. And I think that was obviously lost. I believe, I cannot say for sure, I'm like 80% of this, that he was basically let go or moved on because the tone had gotten a little critical of San Jose, and that's a huge negative to me. Because this is, I never, look, you don't want a guy just totally slandering your team for any reason,

because you have obvious reasons to try and build up your team, and you don't want your fans subjected to constant negativity. But I think there's an important balance here, whether it's 55, 45, 45, or 60, 40 positive, whatever it is. You don't want to broadcast just overtly lying to you, like altitude. and I thought he was really good in that role. And when they let him, I think it's been a big downgrade for them. Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned, it's kind of tough when you're asked to be in front of a live mic for three hours and eventually you're probably going to slip up. But like, you can walk a fine line there while, like, you know, you don't have to

be slandering the team while just laying out the facts and being like, listen, this team hasn't been playing very well and this is why and you're not necessarily like personally attacking the team as much as you're just stating facts. And if you're just turning a blind eye to that and pretending like everything's great, that's a massive negative. So I agree with you there. Any other thoughts? I'll just go through the last couple ones. I had Minnesota.

I'm sorry, I had Vancouver in there as well. Yeah. I had Calgary in there as well. I could have given Calgary a three. They were definitely a tweener team for me. And a three, three again on this scale is probably average to slightly above average. So the way I'm looking at how I'm looking at. Who do you have at three then?

So three, I've got about six of them. And in no particular order, it is Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, Islanders, Rangers, Philadelphia, Nashville. Now, let's say Carter Hutton becomes a focal point of the Fox Sports Tennessee broadcast. Nashville jumps up to like a four or five, right? Yeah, he's like outstanding. And it's hilarious to me because like they like, sometimes they do like a sort of like a split screen or a picture and picture thing where like he's just sitting on the bench and all his gear and he has like a headset on and he's just like breaking down

the play and telling us what they did at practice the other day and I'm like holy shit this is amazing like let's have this all the game so he was he was extremely I remember I think I called the first time he actually did that and I instantly tweeted like I think Carter Hutton's better than half the jobs currently he's definitely has an eye for um Boston so we got kind of going to order quick we talked about Boston a little bit in the last podcast. But look, I'll ding him a little bit if you think Jack Edwards is too much of a home or fine. Whatever, whatever you want to knock him down a bit, go have it. But the rest of the broadcast, first off, as you said, he makes every hockey game. He treats every game like it's game seven in the finals, and I enjoy that because I don't think,

I think he genuinely likes and enjoys watching hockey more than anything else. I think Andy Brickley does a really good job at, again, at showing me what maybe I didn't see in the run of play and maybe that cameras didn't catch that he caught with his naked eye on the actual game. I do think that, and I would emphasize this more than anything, when I first looked at these broadcasts like four years ago, I had Boston pretty well. And I felt, I guess in retrospect, I feel like maybe part of that was driven by the fact that there was a, an obvious superiority complex tone on the broadcast, which was kind of grading. I think, I don't know this, this might be very just theoretical, but I feel like maybe the last year or so was humbling to the point. They're still big Bruins fans, but I don't go to that broadcast and think that they're going to pump up the Bruins team more than, more than any

other broadcasts who pump up a specific team. The way they talk about other teams and players around the league is significantly more positive than it was. It used to be basically the Bruins had the 23 best players in the league for the most part. And you maybe only caught a rare Ovechkin or Crosby Comet. Now I think they really do a nice job of kind of laying out game plans for attacking teams and the players to watch and why they're the players to watch and why they're good at what they do. And I think Andy Brickley is a big part of that. Look, to be in my three group, I think you're average to a,

I would definitely say that even though this is going to kill some people. I think Nesson's in the top half of the league. I would again, if you think they're truly that bad, because I feel like they're a very polarizing broadcasts, if you think they're truly that bad, just go watch around the league, go watch a root sports or an altitude or a Fox Sports, a prime ticket, Anaheim Ducks broadcasts because they're night and deck. Nesson is significantly better. Yeah, no, I completely agree.

and they have gotten better at sort of, I guess, acknowledging other team's strengths and weaknesses, but it's funny, like, whenever they play the Habs or something like that, they don't, they still don't restrain themselves from kind of throwing in pot shots there and trolling the Habs fan base a little bit. So, I don't know, I like Jack Edwards. As long as you go into it acknowledging that he's a massive, massive Boston fan and he's a homer like a lot of these guys are, then it's totally fine, and it's fun. It kind of feels like an experience. So I'm with you on that.

what other teams did you have there in the threes? So I had both Islanders and Rangers broadcast. Yeah, I like the Rangers won a lot more than the Islanders. So I mean, I mean, I grew up watching. I'd probably watch more Rangers than Island. I've watched,

yeah, I watch MSG probably more than any broadcast. And I like to, I have to say, I liked to the Islanders broadcast when the team was terrible and how he rose was so bitter. And he was just, the last like two months of the year,

he would talk about just the upcoming Mets season. And he basically did it every single. single game. It was the most amazing aspect of the Islanders broadcast. But like, I think he does a fine job. I think Sam Rosen does a fine job too. And, um, Nicoletti and Goring is the color guys. Like, they're good. They're not great. Um, there's better guys around the league. But I, I feel like me, and maybe this is me, um, again, kind of throwing a dart here. But I feel like the actual, like broadcast quality, like the actual visual and audio quality on the MFSC broadcasts are better than most of the Fox Sports broadcast. Is that, is that, is that a, is that a fair?

things to say are I dreaming this? Yeah, I don't know. It's tough. Like, I think the audio quality is fine, I guess, but the visual sometimes is like a little dark, I guess, on the Game Center Live. And maybe that's just the way games in the way. Maybe I just have post-concussion symptoms and I just kind of like everything just enjoy it. Yeah. I think that's just randomly subjectively. Like, I like Sam Rosen's voice. I don't know. It's soothing to me for whatever reason. And I guess that's not a very rational way to evaluate it. But that gives me a kind of a.

a heads up on the Islanders broadcast. So one I was super on the fence with, and I could have made them a two, but I started getting gun-shy how many teams I had it, too. Philadelphia, I don't really, they're probably the team I have the weakest opinion about. Like, I have no opinion about Philadelphia's broadcast. Yeah, I don't either really. And Keith Jones is on it, right? Yeah, he's on it.

Jim Jackson's been the play-by-play guy for years there. And then depending on, I think they have Bill Clement rotate in sometimes, too. I mean, the color guy should just be like, or a color guy. lady should just be a rotating chair of every day it's just a different person from flyers twitter online and it's just that person just provides our dose of snark for the week i feel like really no one would say no to that so um i think they should explore that as a business venture moving forward uh the buffalo broadcast i think they've made the transition from rick j to dan dunleavy i like i think that's been fairly seamless it's it's hard to replace a guy who is so iconic and like

He is beloved locally. And I like him. I didn't love him as a play-by-play guy, but I liked him. But Sabres fans loved him more than anyone, more than their parents. And Dan, Donnelly, in the games, he's done anyway. I've liked this call. I mean, he kind of reminds me of he kind of reminds me of Cangeloisi and New Jersey, maybe a little better version.

But I feel like he's a pretty sharp and astute observer of the game for a play-by-play guy. And that does not go and notice. a lot of play-by-play guys that are cash and checks. They're just calling, they are just calling the run of play and that's it. And I feel like he picks up on a bit more of the subtleties that you maybe would expect from a color analyst who maybe was an ex-coach or player or whatever the case may be. So I have that, I have them in there as well. And then the, I like the Montreal broadcast. Again, the Nashville broadcast too is another one with Philadelphia. I don't really have a super strong opinion. I really liked Pete Weber. I think Grimson's still doing the

by the way, weirdest thing about Stu Grimson is he is a, like, the most vicious hockey player to maybe ever play the game and now he's this big lawyer on doing color broadcasts on a local NHL broadcast.

But I like the Nashville broadcast. Well, I'm going to give him a little credit for actually giving Carter Hutton air time because I feel like it's one of those things where they like legitimately like stick with him while the game's going on and he's doing the color commentary and we have to give them credit for that because it's part of the team, I guess.

Here are my group of four. So a four is damn good. A four is damn good. You got to be. So how many teams do we have left just so I can roughly keep track? We have, I have seven left, but two are technically cheating because it's one. Yeah. Okay.

I think we pretty much have the same teams then, I guess. Okay. So well, my fours are Carolina, Chicago, L.A. and Winnipeg. So I know we'll get to Winnipeg. I know that was the one you seem to disagree on. The Carolina broadcast, John Fores, is maybe, I will say he is a top two or three play-by-play guy in the NHO. He's, okay, he is 100% better than Doc Emmerc too.

Let me get that out to. And he's not the only one, but I would take John Forreslin's call over Doc Emmerich's call any day of the week. Again, for the kind of the reasons that I talked about with Dan Dunleavy, which is I just think he knows more about the sport. And he doesn't overly inject himself, but he calls a. really exciting fun run of play and that's been kind of hard to do especially for a Carolina team that struggled a lot last year and he kept

I think he keeps people more engaged than your average play by play guy Pat Foley is another one. Super exciting got to watch love his calls. I love when he goes to the high pitch say a big save Cory Crawford makes a big save love that Cory Crawford had a dozen a little bit because

Eddie Olchuk can sometimes say some pretty stupid stuff so are they out of your top like where are they on that I had them as a three but I'm not like you know I'm not going crazy about the four but I'm kind of curious so have you already said the devil's yeah I had the devil's damage as a two

I have them as a four I honestly don't know why I just I enjoy it I think it's honestly like sort of maybe like just like a little bit of a comedic act component where I love the combination of Danico and Gangelosi where it's just like every time they panted them. Danico was just like towering over him and he's just like yelling in his face and Gangelis, he's like vaguely scared but also trying to be professional and I don't know. I just like, for whatever reason, it kind of cracks me up and Danicle always just drops these

random nuggets about, uh, I remember one time he just like dropped this crazy stat about something and he's like, yeah, someone in someone in Toronto told me about it and I was like, what? Like, dude, it just didn't, didn't elaborate any further. Just left us kind of hanging, wanting more. So I don't know, like I just had a random soft spot for, I guess that dynamic. So I like them a little more than you. They were a soft two. Like they could have been a three. They could have been in totally.

Have you done Washington yet? Yeah, Washington was a two. And I'm more sure that Washington is a two of the New Jersey. Yeah, they're a little bit homerific. They were higher. Again, another team that was higher when I revisited, when I initially visited this, I don't know. There's no like strong takeaway. Like there's nothing I can point to from that broadcast and say this elevates them in particular.

like Ben and Adi's okay, the color analysis is okay, the intermissions are okay. Like there's nothing that like, I don't dread watching the Capitol's game. It's fine. It's okay. It's an okay broadcast. But again, when you're comparing relative to 29 other teams, kind of needs to rank and file somewhere. And I just think there are more broadcasts that pop than the Washington one.

Yeah. Well, the surprising one you had there for me and you kind of mentioned earlier was the Jets. And I like Dennis Bayak, but Shane Knighty, for whatever reason, just rubs me the wrong way. He pulls the, he pulls the like, I used to play the, game so I know what's going on here. A card way too much for my liking. Dennis Bayak calls, again, I would say he is one. He might be, I don't know if he's the top of three, but I think he's the most underrated play-by-play guy. And he, I think, carries that broadcast a considerable amount. He is very good at what he does. Listen, Travis, you're a TSN employee. Of course you're

going to be saying all this stuff. Hey, man, I'll have the knives out for a TSN guy. I'll take him out. I'll pull him out the back pocket. I think, I think Sarah Oleski is one of the best in like doing that, I don't even know what you call on the role. You just need to talk to this because if I say anything, it's just going to be company man. No, I like the Jets. They're fine. I wouldn't have them as a four.

I had them as a two, maybe a three, but I'm not going to fight you over it. It's whatever. The L.A., I need to say something about the L.A. broadcast. So, like, Miller and Fox are good.

I think this is a case where the color analysis maybe elevates the broadcast. They do a thing at intermission. There's a couple other teams that do this too, but Fox consistently, He'll have a segment. It's usually him. There might be someone else that does it as well,

but they consistently during intermissions will maybe isolate like four or five minutes on a key play that happened in the period prior, and they'll break down specifically how it happened. And that is, I can't explain this enough. When you have a 17-minute intermission, I don't want to hear from a sweaty, exhausted player because 100% of the time, I gain nothing from it. Not even 99%.

It is 100%. They never say anything substantive. I doubt I would either. Like, what are you going to say? You're guest. You just played 10 minutes in the opening period. You're trying to get back to the locker room. You want to talk to your fellow players.

You want to talk to your coach maybe. You get asked these just horrific questions. And it's, you know, we've got to get pucks deep. And, you know, we've got to play our game and 60 minute game. And basically that's at every regurg state. Whereas L.A., they didn't do away with those segments. But they have this additional segment. Again, it just breaks down the run of a big play.

and basically how it developed. And I think it is so educational. It reminds me a lot of a condensed version of the old Justin Bourne systems analysis post that he used to put up where he would go at length and discuss how maybe one PowerPlay sequence ended up in a big goal in a game or something. And Jim Fox is a really good job of that in like three or four minutes. And like that's what I want to see. Tell me how this puck got into the net because I like maybe some cases I saw the replay, but maybe in other cases like there was a big neutral. Zone play that I didn't pick up on and maybe the broadcast cameras didn't catch it in real time or maybe there was a dynamic that Fox caught that I necessarily didn't. But again, that is one of

the few shows where if there's an intermission, I will more likely than not delay my bathroom break to the commercial, whereas some of these I'm just immediately getting up from the couch. Right. Well, you know there's a pause button, right? You don't need to actually hold in your... No one pauses, no one pauses games. I hate doing that. It drives me nuts when people do that. And then you got to fangle with the, I sound like I'm 30, by the way. I think older than 30. Complaining about the remotes. I like saying numbers that are, I like saying like I feel like I'm 28 or I feel like

I'm 30 or something older than me currently so that I make people that are 27 or 28 or 30 or 32 or whatever. I want them to feel so old when I make those comments. That's the only reason why I do it. I think the NHLPA and the next CBA negotiation should really push hard for just eliminating all in-game player interviews because they're terrible. They are so bad. it is maybe the worst part

of these NHL broadcast in general and every single broadcast does it. TSN, Sportsnet, NBC, every local broadcasts. They do so many player interviews and I feel like they only do them because that's what they've done historically. And maybe they were great in the 70s

and 80s when we weren't alive. But now they're horrific. And they're just standing there and there's skates towering over the person interviewing them. Dude, there was one like a week ago. Kyle Taurus, I think he just had like a four minute shift. And they're sitting there asking them a question.

Yeah, it's great. And I'm like, oh, this is good. This is entertaining. The guy's going to need defibrillator in a second. But other than that, everything's fine here. So yeah, bonus, big bonus points to do LA there. That's why they are a four and not a three. Cool with that.

So yeah, I had, I had, let me count it. I had three, I have four teams in my, I guess, top echelon. And one of them was Carolina, which we just talked about. So I'm cool with having them as a four, but I like them a lot. I think the obvious one is the Dallas broadcast. Just so good. They're cheating. How do you go from, first off, Ralph Strangis, when he did play-by-play, he was,

so he was the most underrated play-by-play guy until he left the industry and then Dennis Bayack took it over, I guess, the mantle. But then they replaced him with Dave Schrader, who is probably the best play-by-play guy in the United States. I will argue that emphatically. Another guy who I would decisively argue was better than Doc Emmerich. you know, Strader gets some national games as well. And I just find it amazing that they were able to segue from like really, really good at his job to also really, really good at his job.

And, you know, people fought over Razor. And I get it. Like, I find him extremely entertaining. And his word jumbo is is amazing sometimes. There are literally words that he pulls out that I have no idea what they mean. I think the play-by-play aspect of this broadcast gets underrated. I think a lot of people when you talk about the Dallas broadcast, it's, oh, yeah, well, Razor is a bit. best color guy in the sport. The play-by-play guy for however long Stras was there and now,

however long Dave Schrader's been there, has been probably the best also. So, I mean, I feel like that needs to be underlined because it's not just a one-man show on that broadcast. Yeah, well, obviously, Razor takes a lot of attention because he's super flashy. I like that, I mean, we talked about this when we were doing the watchability rankings where it's one thing that he uses all these fancy words, but like, speaking of MSG, like Clyde Frazier also uses a lot of big words, but a lot of them don't actually make sense. And you can just tell he's just been, like, reading a thesaurus, whereas Razor is actually sort of... Switching and dishing. Whereas, like, Razor is actually sort of, like, adding a little spice

to it in terms of being descriptive when something interesting happens, but he's not like just randomly out of the blue throwing out terms to make no sense. So, uh, he actually adds the broadcast, which I really enjoy, uh, along with the vocabulary. So I think Dallas is pretty clearly and has been. I've never really understood how Dallas has been able to preserve obvious guys. that should be in big national, like literally doing national broadcasts. And I recognize that they're only a finite number of jobs. But I would have argued that Strangus, Strader, and Razer were basically at all points of their career in the top, I don't know, three or four, even at their worst days. So it's been awesome for stars fans.

We've got to find a broadcast where we just shiv the stars for an hour because we talked them up so much recently. Now it's the freaking broadcast. Before it was the trades, then it was the roster makeup, then it was the goal scoring. We've got to find something to just shiv them for an hour to bring stars fans back to reality. But also, I love the deep in the heart of Texas that they do in the when the puck's whizzled dead. But any other broadcast you might throw out in that top group, Demetri? Yes, I would. Well, okay, we're not even shilling for TSN here because two of these guys are actually friends of the podcast.

So I feel... No, now we're shilling for the podcast. We're shilling for ourselves. I feel like that's perfectly understandable. Yeah, it's Gordon Miller and Ray Ferraro and Cuthbert and McClennan. And I don't know, it's interesting. Like, I don't get to watch much Miller and Ferraro because I don't really watch the Leafs that much.

But honestly, like watching the World Juniors and getting to listen to them call games, I was interested again, was just such a like a breath of fresh air. And I just realized how badly I missed it. So I think that's my favorite team in the league. So again, if you're a five in my list, I have no, like, I have no measurable complaint at all. And they're in that group. And I know that's very company mannish, but there is, let me think of something I can spin that is not just like total praise of them. So Ray Ferraro, I learned more from him than any color guy in the league. So immediately

jumps at least into my top two, if not the top color guy in the, in the industry, period. Jamie McClunin, I've never seen a guy improve so much in his job over like two years. And not that he was like terrible like he was good but like I feel like his year over year improvements have been insanely good and I think I think a lot of that is just paying attention to what's out there just getting comfortable some guys have like a tap like I don't I have to say I have to say I don't know if I'd be any good at what any of these guys did yeah I think I'd probably be horrible and the fact that he went he immediately as an ex player went to a position was good from the jump and then became unbelievably good in what a year or two's time it's it's pretty impressive so I

I would definitely put them in that list as well in that group. Well, yeah, that's a good point you make there about, like, I think we'd both suck at it. It's really tough to night in and night out, have to keep talking for three hours and not just be, you know, rabbling on about random stuff and repeating yourself over and over again. Like, they add new things every time they open their mouth, and that's a really kind of unique skill that they have.

So I think those two teams are my no doubt about it, one, two, and then the Dallas team is three. Fair enough. Any other last final closing points on this? No, I don't. Hopefully this is going to be like a good template for people to check out different broadcast teams and whatnot. And I'm sure there's going to be people who disagree because it is pretty subjective.

But I think we did a pretty reasonable job at it. Again, if you, I am interested to hear if anyone thinks like one of our two or three or four teams are totally different from what we suspect because I'm open to those arguments. I don't really know that I would move any of those one teams to anything more than a two. And I highly doubt I'd move any of those five teams to lower than a four. And the argument needs to be more beyond I watch these guys all the time because they cover my favorite. Yeah, good point. All right, man, we'll be back next week with a couple shows. So I'm sure we need to finally adopt Islanders.

We mention this all the time. But it's just other stuff's kind of gone in the way. So we'll have a big win tonight at home. Yeah, a huge win. So we'll get to them next week and we'll figure some other stuff out. So Travis, man, it was fun, and we'll talk soon. All right, take care now. The Hockey PDOCast, online at HockeyPedocast.com.

Subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud, or follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and at Travis Yost.