I also think it's worth looking across the board at other NHL colour commentators - all of these IMO of course:
Harry Neale - hard to actually say if he was any good or not at this point, but hard to argue against nostalgia and such an iconic voice
Ray Ferraro - good, mostly because he is so confident and commanding. Not sure his 'analysis' is anything special.
Craig Simpson - just generally inoffensive and doesn't do anything wrong/annoying...but nothing stands out as particularly 'good'
Keith Jones/Olcyzk/Boucher/Pang - generally inoffensive with good camaraderie. No particularly insightful analysis. It's also possible we'd find things to hate if we heard them more often.
Bill Clement - not sure he was ever particularly good, but gets points for nostalgia and being in video games
Hrudey - I'm not as down on him as others, for me he's just kinda background inoffensive + camaraderie (w/ Ball only)
Debrusk - barf
Millen - barf
Garrett - occasionally entertaining clownish barf
Pierre McGuire - cringey barf
Campbell - barf
Healy - barf; better as a hot-take guy (which is still barfy)
That is a total of 15. I count 6 dislikes, 8 okay(ish), and 1 N/A.
At a glance, I'd say the US broadcast has better commentators, but I suspect that has more to do with watching them less frequently and rarely having a strong rooting interest (for or against) in the games they call.
I think people compare CC's against an idealized standard that simply doesn't exist in hockey. The flow of hockey is a lot closer to soccer than the other big 3 NA sports...perhaps there is a reason soccer tends to have a lot of 1 man booths?
|