Game on!

[rammersdaman]

Okay. After six months of lurkerdom, I want to thank the folks who provided the Comcast video feeds. (Although the feeds were tough on my Mac, I still had some on-and-off action.) If you're stuck in Dixie, your cable package doesn't include OLN, and you cannot get a direct line for a satellite, like me :( , take a look at NBC's coverage for this afternoon.

 

I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that this afternnoon will be the first time I've watched a Sabres' game on US network television since . . . the 70's? Do I recall a Stanley Cup game on ABC several years ago?

 

Anyway, does the gr55 audio feed match at all with the NBC feed? I want to continue to listen to the lullaby-like dulcet tones of RJ while watching the TV.

[elcrusho]

I bet you have a delay...but who knows....

 

I should do that, Turn down the TV and TURN UP RJ & JL

[letsgobuffalo45]

If the NBC announcers suck, you know I'll be blasting some Rick and Jim on the radio...

[blugold43]

i think i saw it was emrick...he's not bad. except he used to be a flyers broadcaster, so we may have to deal with a little extra "phillatio," if you know what i mean.

 

i really liked gary thorne on espn...i miss hearing his calls.

[Wacka]

The paper is saying Avs and Stars here in the SF bay area. :angry: :angry: :angry:

[Goodfella25]

NBC coverage is so annoying because:

 

1. They have someone at ice level that randomly interupts the commentary

2. The commentators never actually "call" the game until the 3rd period. They spent the whole 1st and 2nd period stating random facts and game stories and hardly ever called the action....terrible!

3. We are sooo spoiled with RJ and Lorenz

[nfreeman]

I thought Emrick was decent and McNab was mediocre -- he didn't seem to know anything beyond the headlines.

 

However, one HUGE plus was seeing the sabres in high definition for the first time (for me anyway, since I have DirecTV, which doesn't have OLN in HD). Pretty sweet.

[X. Benedict]

I thought Emrick was decent and McNab was mediocre -- he didn't seem to know anything beyond the headlines.

 

I wish they would just call the game. 60 minutes of hockey and they seemed to call about 10 minutes of it. In the middle of a period discussing hockey dollars for 4 minutes of playing time makes me homicidal.

[PASabreFan]

Oh lord yes. I was almost rooting for the return of Alexei Zhitnik so he could take Cami Granato's head off with a slapshot. Yes, I actually think Alex could have missed that badly. The whole broadcast begged for one of those announcerless games the NFL tried many years ago. It was brutal. Awful. Mike Emrick, who is a terrific play by play man, should be embarrassed to be part of a production that holds the game in such low regard. I don't get it. If you're playing to a rabid hockey audience, you call the game. If you're playing to the casual fan, you still the call game -- the game has to be the selling point. Hockey is very tough to follow on TV, and without a play by play call that stays with the play, you get lost.

[bob_sauve28]

I wish they would just call the game. 60 minutes of hockey and they seemed to call about 10 minutes of it. In the middle of a period discussing hockey dollars for 4 minutes of playing time makes me homicidal.

I agree they did a good job, but the criticism is true. They babbled on about bull #%^$#! too much. Some of it was cool though, talking about the league in the 1940's and such. It added a baseball touch to it, I liked that

 

Oh lord yes. I was almost rooting for the return of Alexei Zhitnik so he could take Cami Granato's head off with a slapshot. Yes, I actually think Alex could have missed that badly. The whole broadcast begged for one of those announcerless games the NFL tried many years ago. It was brutal. Awful. Mike Emrick, who is a terrific play by play man, should be embarrassed to be part of a production that holds the game in such low regard. I don't get it. If you're playing to a rabid hockey audience, you call the game. If you're playing to the casual fan, you still the call game -- the game has to be the selling point. Hockey is very tough to follow on TV, and without a play by play call that stays with the play, you get lost.

Ya, that Chick was annoying

[Bmwolf21]

Oh lord yes. I was almost rooting for the return of Alexei Zhitnik so he could take Cami Granato's head off with a slapshot. Yes, I actually think Alex could have missed that badly. The whole broadcast begged for one of those announcerless games the NFL tried many years ago. It was brutal. Awful. Mike Emrick, who is a terrific play by play man, should be embarrassed to be part of a production that holds the game in such low regard. I don't get it. If you're playing to a rabid hockey audience, you call the game. If you're playing to the casual fan, you still the call game -- the game has to be the selling point. Hockey is very tough to follow on TV, and without a play by play call that stays with the play, you get lost.

I kept the Col-Dal game in the pic-in-pic, and switched over during breaks. The announcers there were doing something really annoying - they kept telling me who had the puck, who was trying to take it from him, who was getting a penalty, etc. I mean here I am, trying to learn some more about this "hockey dollars" concept, and more about hockey hstory, etc...and these guys have to keep doing play-by-play. What are they thinking?

 

Seriously - I was really disappointed with the coverage - Emrick is a good PbP announcer, and NBC really limited him with their format of letting McNab and Granato babble on incessantly. I didn't notice it nearly as much during the Colorado-Dallas game, but to be fair, I didn't watch nearly as much of that game.

[HurlyBurly51]

However, one HUGE plus was seeing the sabres in high definition for the first time (for me anyway, since I have DirecTV, which doesn't have OLN in HD). Pretty sweet.

 

Me too, man! That was freakin' awesome :D

[Wild Jay]

I would agree with people's assessments, NBC's babbling coverage reminded me of what Monday Night Football's play by play coverage has become in recent years. They just kept going about such random things such as the Philadelphia Phantoms Calder Cup win last year, hockey dollars & the conversion rate, and how the linesman or referee used to play goalie in high school, ugghhh! I guess we truly are spoiled with RJ! Those will be huge shoes to fill when he retires.

[frisky]

For me, it was just plain awful to listen to them babbling on and on and on during play like during odd man breaks and shots on net. Since I was watching on TV without being able to listen to the radio webcast at the same time it was torturous. It felt like watching a baseball game. My question was how are people supposed to get familiar with what's going on in the game and the players if their talking about other s**t. Does anyone remember that time they had that lady on the Sabres broadcast who commenting about how she didn't like the colors of their uniforms and stuff like that?

[gkozlows]

They were driving me nuts with the "Forsberg this and Forsberg that. " It was almost getting as bad as the Bills/New England game on ESPN , otherwise known as the "Tedy Bruschi show".

[rammersdaman]

NBC coverage is so annoying because:

 

1. They have someone at ice level that randomly interupts the commentary

2. The commentators never actually "call" the game until the 3rd period. They spent the whole 1st and 2nd period stating random facts and game stories and hardly ever called the action....terrible!

3. We are sooo spoiled with RJ and Lorenz

 

I'm not sure that the history lessons on the NBC coverage were so bad. RJ and JL are great for fans listening on the radio, but, if you're going for new fans, I'm not so sure you can go wrong with hockey history. That said, I grew bored pretty quickly . . .