« I just found the perfect quote… | Home | Weekend Odds and Ends »
A Play-By-Play Of NHL Playoff Announcing
By Woopop | April 18, 2008 3:25 pm
With all apologies to Rick Jeanneret…
After watching the entire Caps-Flyers 2OT epic last night, I realized how much I enjoyed listening to John Forslund and Eddie Olczyk call the game. There wasn’t a lot of the “teaching” talk, and more real analysis. Edzo had some insightful stuff to say, including ripping on the officiating in favor of both teams, and Forslund was just spot on with the calls all night, including lots of enthusiasm for both sides. It’s kind of a shame that I don’t really watch Hurricanes games, because he’s really really good. It probably helped that it was an exciting game anyway, but they actually added to it, which seems to me to be a rarity for a national telecast. It’s actually kind of funny, because Joe Beninati had been the #2 guy for Versus all year, but I’m guessing since the Caps made the playoffs, he’s sticking with their regional telecasts for now, and since the Caps bumped out Forslund’s Hurricanes, he got the gig instead. Makes you wonder if the Canes had gotten in instead, if Beninati would be doing the games. (For the record, I like his calls also, so it’s almost a wash for me.) Along those lines, on the late Versus games, the team of Rick Peckham (who normally does the Lightning) and Neil Smith has been okay, but Billy Jaffe has been awesome as the sideline reporter. It sounds kind of stupid, because usually the sideline person does the fluff pieces and the crappy interviews, and generally doesn’t add a whole hell of a lot to things, but Jaffe has been pretty insightful, and has shed some light on some interesting tidbits.
It’s weird hearing John Kelly doing Avalanche games, as I’m used to hearing him usually doing Blues games. He’s filling in for the Av’s usual announcer who’s having health problems. I thought it was pretty cool of the Blues to let him do that, which it is, but what I didn’t realize is that before the lockout, Kelly was the Avs primary announcer from 1995 to 2003, so there was plenty of history there. Conversely, I *cannot* stand having to watch the Ducks regional broadcasts, as Brian Hayward makes me want to shove pencils in my ears. He simply will not shutup long enough for his partner to actually, you know, announce the game. That, and he really never says anything all that interesting. I cringe when I see FSN Prime Ticket at the top of my Center Ice channel. Ugh.
And finally, to round out our announcer discussion, there’s a really nice piece here about Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez doing the Mets telecasts. I think they’re a big part of the reason I really starting following the Mets the last couple seasons. Time Warner added SNY once it was created two seasons ago, and while it certainly didn’t hurt that the Mets played quite well that year (hello bandwagon!), I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Gary, Ron and Keith do their thing. Apparently I started following some of the best, and didn’t even really realize it! Although, since I’m getting a taste of the MLB Extra Innings package while the NHL playoffs are still going on, I’ve caught some other teams broadcasts, and they kinda suck in comparison.
Topics: Regular | | Comments Off
Comments are closed.