They are excellent, connoisseurs and popularizers. There are more of them than ever before, our hockey analysts, but too much is like not enough.
Some Canadian game nights, there is a half-hour review before the game. A first analysis in the ten minutes preceding the game during which an analyst will identify everything he can. At least two other analyzes by two other analysts at the first and second intermission, and will follow a post-game show where we are still doing an autopsy of everything that happened in the evening. It’s huge and especially if your team is not playing well. If you’re a fan, you’re going to be full of negatives for more than three hours. It’s overflowing.
I do not claim that we should stop analyzing for those who know the game. But we must also think of the little ones, the young people and those who are less keen, less bitten, less enraged. Not everyone wants to know that so-and-so is a right-handed left-hander who has already scored 20 goals in his sophomore year at Boston College.
If you are the least attentive, you will notice that many observations are communicated to you repeatedly during the evening. If we eliminated redundancies and repetitions, there would be great moments of silence.
TO GET CLOSER
Where the broadcast of hockey has deviated in recent years is in its connections with players and coaches.
In another era, at the first intermission, you were automatically presented with an interview of at least 5 minutes with a Canadian player or a French-speaking member of the opposing team.
This is one of the reasons that favored this closeness between the players and the public that we feel less or even not at all today.
It’s in his 5-minute interviews during hockey that you discovered the madness of Luc Robitaille, the sarcastic spirit of Guy Lafleur, the passion of young Mario Tremblay, astonishing analyzes of Patrick Roy.
It doesn’t happen anymore and that’s unfortunate. Especially since hockey players have never expressed themselves so well. NHL hockey is a spectator sport. We must not neglect the second word of this expression.
These interviews allowed fans to get to know their idols better. First, to recognize the face, but also to discover their concerns, their character, their sense of humor.
THEY LIKE IT
A few years ago, the Canadian and RDS concocted a production called “24 CH”. It was great, fun. A real breakthrough in the intimacy of the team. A real backstage to which the players lent themselves with great pleasure, thus creating a real connection with the public. We discovered them in their pleasure, their teenage games. The idea was abandoned.
On some nights, we’ll be shown a short one- or two-question interview with a player, recorded immediately after the first period. First, it’s not enough. Second, hot immediately at the end of the engagement, it’s never relevant because the player hasn’t had time to relax, to prepare.
The NHL wants to sell us the spectacular aspects of its daily life, but we have to let us get close to it, and it starts with the main actors, the players. They all have an interesting story, given the heights they reach, the money they pocket, the fantastic universe in which they live.
Besides the interviews, there are also these reports (features) which take us to these stars who have a family, friends, other passions and even secrets to share.
Having experienced it for more than twenty years as a host at TVA and TQS, I can tell you that the players love it. I know that these topos are broadcast on some shows, but it’s on match nights that you have to present them to us when the ratings are at their highest level. Spectator sport, I repeat.
From the enclave
- What a performance from our magnificent golfer Maude-Aimee Leblanc in Florida ! Getting away from your sport for a while can be good. Saying she had COVID less than 10 days ago.
- ryan hughes, the brother of Ken, the new GM of the Canadiens, was drafted in the second round of 1990 by the Nordiques. He played 3 games in the NHL, but that was with Boston in 1996.
- Lawton CourtnalL 25, is the son of Russ Courtnall. Never drafted, Lawton plays with the South Carolina Stingrays. He will play against the Trois-Rivières Lions on March 25, 26 and 27.
- Seven Quebecers played for Joel Bouchard since the start of the season with the San Diego Gulls. He does his part.
- Why Tomas Tatar at 31 did he crash so quickly? This season with Jersey, only 17 points in 39 games. In his first two seasons in Montreal, he was a player of around 60 points.
- Also unrecognizable is PKSubban with its 15 small points at $8 million per year.
- Logan Mailloux under Dale Hunter in London: 8 points in 6 games. 6’3” and 212 lbs.
- Tomorrow it will be 21 years George Gillett bought 80% of the Canadian and all of the Molson Center for 275 million. A gift from heaven. A dozen years ago, the Molson brothers bought everything for 575 million. According to Forbes, today, the Canadian is worth 1.6 billion.
Archival photo
George Gillett