Per ESPN, announced on Wednesday, 25 regular-season games on ESPN or ABC, early-round playoff series and one conference final each year, four Stanley Cup Final series on ABC and more than 1,000 games per season streaming on ESPN+. ESPN+ and Hulu will be home to 75 ESPN-produced exclusive telecasts per season.
For over ten years the NHL and ESPN had a good working relationship. They had decent hockey coverage, but towards the end of the run, they started getting overshadowed by the other three major sports with the NBA NFL and MLB. Don't get me wrong, the NHL had great announcers calling the games on the network. Guys like Joe Beninati, Dave Strader, Jack Edwards, Steve Levy and Gary Thorne called games on the national broadcasts. And some have heard me talk about this before on radio shows in the past, Gary Thorne and Bill Clement are two of the reasons I've wanted to get into becoming a hockey announcer.
When the NHL does make its return to the network, I would love to hear Beninati, Levy and Thorne calling games on the network for national work again. I would also love to see this as a sign that the NHL is starting to get more national attention and respect. It's kind of look down on among the big four sports and doesn't really get enough respect that it deserves now. So here's hoping that the league and the network can start to get something like this right and showcase the best hockey players in the world in the best way possible.
So here's hoping that this helps grow the game even more and take its coverage of the sport to the next level and get it to a higher level of sports consciousness
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