I don't doubt that Kerr was, and anyone who likes hockey and has their career directly related to it would be, hard pressed to say no to trying this opportunity. Can't blame him for taking the job. But he shouldn't have been given it, given the lack of experience. This isn't the place to be still learning play by play.
Bottom line, overall, he distracts from the watching game for me and its hard to ignore outside of the mute button.
He's more comfortable with the prepared stories and stats he's assembled (cannot fault his effort and knowledge of those types of things), and thus forces them into the game and they spill over well into the PBP...by the time the story is finished shots and sometimes chances have been missed...or he's behind and all of a sudden the voice goes from 0 to 60 to try and catch up.
By no means am I an expert, but watching hockey on TV for decades, you get used to a certian common delivery and building up of plays, as well as general update every 5 seconds as to what is going on in the ice even of there are stories being told. When the PBP does occur, he randomly gets excited at plays that are half chances, and decent chances are ignored or brushed off.
As an example, with watching and playing around with our little girl most evenings, most broadcasts the game is on in the background or another room and can catch glimpses every minute or so, but rely on the audio to catch what's going on. From a couple nights ago, he was confused to the Baerstchi/Regher penalty in the LA game as he was in mid story when that happend, which it took me a while to figure out. Then, on the PK, I hear him and SImmer chatting about some other story and suddenly hear "They score!" when Carter scored the shorthanded goal. No buildup, nothing, because the goal game during a story.
Delivery, cadence, voice intonation and all those techincal delivery aspects of the job are quirky and disjointed at very best. That said, those are hard skills just to pickup and master at an NHL level with little experience, which is why PBP announcing isn't for everyone and takes years or praactice. As one would expect when focusing on one's strengths (that being the background stats and interesting tidbits as he did on radio), he relies on that more then the PBP and you can hear the comfort level/confidence difference in his voice.
That's not really his fault for taking the job or trying to get better at it, it's more for the Flames and Snet to force their viewers to have to go along for the ride 60+ times this year as Kerr tries to learn on the job, when there are numerous well qualified announcers likely to have chosen from, one of which is doing the between period interviews.
Just my opinion.
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