Coming to America
The shiny new (and excellent) NHL FanHouse brings good news regarding the typically terrible TV coverage of hockey in America -- we get Don Cherry!
NBC doesn't do hockey terribly -- Doc Emrick certainly helps -- but I still don't think they're anywhere near the quality of football, baseball, and basketball broadcasts here. Logistically hockey is a tough sport to cover appropriately on TV, but those golden-era ESPN broadcasts with Gary Thorne and Bill Clement set the precedent, and NBC has yet to live up to it.
Cherry, however, will help. It'll be good to have an unapologetically honest presence on-camera, one who isn't afraid to question the prominent opinion. Hockey has bar-none the best playoffs of any sport, based on intensity and tradition. Those are two qualities Cherry provides in spades. To succeed in America, the NHL needs more engaging personalities, on- and off-ice. That's why I want Mark Cuban to buy the Penguins and why it's nothing but good news that America will get a taste of Don Cherry. Plus, he and Barry Melrose can compare awful suits.
