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The ****ing Offseason Thread 2018

As I remember, he was pretty Marlies centric/ Homer when he did their games. Sure, he was making a name for himself, but professional PbP guys "should" be homery when they are hired to do their home teams games.

The problem we have had with Sportsnet, is that got a semi retired PbP guy - who thought he was doing National games (and he was doing a lot of other teams games and National games as well). Plus their #1 broadcast team (who sucks! and they hate the Leafs) does their lead games (that are national, so they can't be homery :rolleyes(2): )

If they hired this Bartlett specifically for Leafs Regional games, then I would think he would be "smart" enough to do a home team broadcast. You don't leave your dream job to take a rivals job, if you aren't going to give it your all.

I had the same feeling with the Raps. Rod Black and Toronto's own John Saunders (RIP) did the PbP. Then Chuck was brought in - I liked him, because he was awesome on the Radio, and he knew to be a great Homer (even though he is from Chicago and his favourite team is/was the Bulls). Once Chuck left, I was worried.

Matt Devlin had big shoes to fill, since he was Charlottes PbP guy and did some National Games, but he has become pretty homery now ( I think it was expected).

I think that is going to be the same Bartlett. One can only hope.

Devlin came in from a backwater team that we had no rivalry with though. He had no built in dislike of the Raptors (which is natural in anyone who lives decades of their life as a Habs fan, there is built in dislike for the Leafs). He also calls a really good game.

Now, the obvious counter point is old golden pipes. Lifelong Habs fan, but the set of lungs on the man allowed him to call a game at legendary levels (for my money, I take prime Bob Cole over any announcer in NHL history, Hewitt included), and was so good that for decades morons accused him of being a Leaf homer. Bartlett isn't that guy. He calls a passable game, but nothing more.

There is an obvious, easy choice to make for Leaf regional games and Rogers refuses to make it for some weird reason. We have a homer with well above average pipes who calls a solid game that is popular with the fanbase. Slam dunk, right? Nope. We get a mediocre Habs fan instead (and for the national games, a less than mediocre Canucks fan). For national games, I get it. I get that you don't want to have a huge Leaf bias given how non Leaf fans already view the Canadian hockey media (Toronto Sports Network, amirite?!?!?), but for regional games I don't want professionalism, I want passion for the club. Everyone else seems to get that other than us.
 
Cole was/is Habs fan and we loved him for years

I'd still take him now just for nostalgia

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk
 
I'll take a passable game over the serpentining, but yeah, a flagship franchise like this deserves a great crew to call games(or at least one the fans love)
 
Oh my god, he is absolutely FREAKING AWFUL. He is much worse than Romanuk. This is unbelievable. What a bizarro world we live in. Listen to that guy, its worse than a Schenn calf muscle.

How can Shanahan, MLSE, Dubas, let Rogers get away with this shit? How can we not have Joe Bowen calling games, he is so far out of this guys league, its painful. I may not even listen to games if this doofus is calling them.

Just a junior C voice, major junior D. **** what an awful start to my day.

So many incompetent people around hockey its scary.

A great voice like Foster Hewitt, Bill Hewitt, Bob Cole, Danny Galivan, Joe Bowen can make a crappy game fun.

Voices like this hack, make a great game dull. Ugh.
 
Just another thought... We spend over 11 million USD on a very good, no, excellent hockey player and we sign a hack, who wasn't even good at the AHL level calling games. ?


Is this some kind of a sick joke. I remember this guy very well, he made me turn off FREE Marlie games, he was so horrible.

Romanuk, is 100 times better than this guy and I don't like Romanuk.

Its actually gotten worse.

We have a bomb of a team and we get this kind of junior D shit? Brutal. This takes 70% of the excitement of Tavares signing out of me.

For the sake of christ, someone create some analytics re: Commentating and broadcasting.... ZEKE?


Get me ****ing Joe Bowen or dig Foster Hewitt out of the ground.

Dig one of the Hewitts, both were amazing and cryo resuscitate them or something obviously Joe Bowen musta gotten drunk and insulted someone, guy is just a voice STUD. Great voice. I cry and weep at this news, its awful. Amateur hour at broadcasting continues.
 
We are going to solve this dilemma by figuring out how to easily tune the radio broadcast on the PC and mute the television for ALL Leaf games this season.

It's hilarious, most of the highlights I watched on youtube last year used Bowen's call.

I don't think they are willing to pay up for Bowen - otherwise he would be there, without question. My guess is that he gets paid for more games doing radio, than only select regional games for SN.
 
We are going to solve this dilemma by figuring out how to easily tune the radio broadcast on the PC and mute the television for ALL Leaf games this season.

It's hilarious, most of the highlights I watched on youtube last year used Bowen's call.

I don't think they are willing to pay up for Bowen - otherwise he would be there, without question. My guess is that he gets paid for more games doing radio, than only select regional games for SN.

I dunno...I don't think that's it.

I think part of what's at play here is that Bowen is employed by the team, but Rogers (Sportsnet) and Bell (TSN) want to have their own guys calling the games, not a guy they'd be sharing with their competition/fellow owner. Another part is a preoccupation with not appearing to be biased in favour of the Leafs.
 
I like Ferraro, but McLennan is even better, I think.

The few games where we had a Beyak/McLennan combo while the Olympics were going on were a joy to listen to.
 
I dunno, but this new guy is just pure awful. Sub Hughson. And that is tough to achieve. We add one of the grittiest players to ever play in the NHL, and we get a play by play guy that is worse than Jim Hughson. This has to be a joke right? Its not real?
 
Alright, got my PC audio delay set-up for preseason. Using "VB Cable" and "Radio Delay" both free or donation ware.
 
Why can't we have this?

[video=youtube;nHdzO5pEsXs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHdzO5pEsXs[/video]

An announcer that actually yells themselves hoarse by the end of a playoff game
 
Danny gallivan
Dan kelly
Foster hewitt cause i was there and listened to him for many years.
Then bob cole.
 
Great list uncus. Bill Hewitt, Foster's son, was outstanding as well. I forgot about Dan Kelly, he was indeed a great. I really like that guy out of the United States, Doc Emrich, I think he is a great also.
Anyone who says, what does a play by play guy bring to the table, is well, missing it completely. A great play by play guy gives the game a new level. A lousy one? Shit, it makes you want to just not watch sometimes, cause regular season games are quite often defensive dull downs.

This new hire just took 70% of the excitement of the Tavares signing off for me. And I love Tavares, always have. Much more than Stamkos.

Joe Bowen is as good as the top six greatest of all time, and if given the opportunity, might have become the greatest. I will ask someone who is apparently very close to the Dubas family, what the heck is up with all the crappy play by play guys. But this guy unfortunately is one of the people who just watches the game and can listen to Bowen or Hughson and barely tell the difference.
 
Why can't we have this?

[video=youtube;nHdzO5pEsXs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHdzO5pEsXs[/video]

An announcer that actually yells themselves hoarse by the end of a playoff game

It's weird, in every other market that is permitted, in Toronto you cannot have that. Canuck fans get John Garrett predicting them to win the cup EVERY year whether they are good or bad and that's supposedly a charming shtick. In Toronto you'd get fired.

Even with the Tavares situation, leading up to July 1st I felt a majority of media in Toronto went out of their way to even mention the Leafs have a chance at signing him.
 
Ferraro is Zeke.. Fabulous.... But we need a Bowen accompanying him. Simple, stupid, there has to be a sub plot here. Hiring drones like Hughson, cannot be by mistake.

Romanuk at least escalates his voice, Hughson just seems like a total Drone. He is not married pretty obvious what he is .... blah blah blah. Not going to go into the obvious.

But having Doc Emrich for every Leaf game or Joe Bowen would be as exciting for me as one of my all time faves, John Tavares.

Firing that guy at the ACC who was amazing for the new drone, was also telling for me.

Don't over excite the public. Prior guy was just pure genius. Ronnie Van Zant.
 
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