Talking Head versus Talking Head makes for good television these days if you have the right combination... Pierre McGuire and Mike Milbury qualify...
Milbury reference what he hoped wasn't happening the night before on "Hockey Night in Canada" in the "pansi-fication" of hockey. On NBC Sports, he went after the "granola crowd" ((with McGuire as their banner waver)) Sunday afternoon...
Count/Pointercount begins below...
((HT: NBC Sports/NHL))
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2 comments:
These debates are always so manufactured. You can almost picture the two guys rehearsing their one-liners before the show. Milbury even had his music all queued up and ready to go.
Even though I'm on Milbury's side here, I'll give McGuire some credit. He's one of the few guys on the anti-fighting side who actually has some experience in the NHL. Virtually all the anti-fighting folks are columnists and broadcasters who've never played or been involved in hockey at a high level. And frankly, most of these guys haven't paid for an actual ticket in years.
Whichever side you're on, it's hard to argue that the overwhelming majority of NHL players, managers and coaches want fighting.
I could do without these debates, especially taking up the entirety of the first intermission of the first regular game on NBC. Milbury might be right that fighting needs to stay, but his argument was incoherent, the clip they showed 2 or 3x seemed to show both Kessel and Valabik using the stick on eachother, and the music reduced the whole thing to a very amateurish level.
One would think the NHL/NBC would want to utilize such precious moments of national airtime to show some positive aspects of the game. A top ten goals of the week? Hell, actual analysis of the period of hockey that was just played? Something to take advantage of the audience watching in HD.
The powers in charge of elevating this sport continue to sell it short. It's sad.
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