The NHL on NBC

I read the media columns in USA Today where they talk about how sports are covered on TV. Doesn't matter that I never see these basketball or baseball games that they're always writing about. The whole thing fascinates me for some reason.

Funny, but these media critics rarely if ever talk about the NHL on NBC. If they do, it's an off-hand comment or a pile-on to talk about how cool the Winter Classic was. Funny thing is that by not tuning into the NHL on NBC, these critics are missing something pretty damn good. In fact, as a veteran hockey fan, I am thinking that the current NHL on NBC broadcast is the best hockey broadcast team we've ever had since I have been alive.

When you begin the broadcast with Mike Emrick, you will never go wrong. It's almost too bad for Doc that he doesn't get the recognition in the industry that he probably deserves because there is no one of similar talent doing a higher profile event line the World Series or the Super Bowl. In fact, if you think of the best-known TV announcers in this country, Mike Emrick is so far ahead of his peers like Chris Berman and Bob Costas that it wouldn't even be a race. Berman is all shouty gimmicks and Costas has long given up actually calling a game for the viewers at home. He just wants to satisfy his smug sense of self-aggrandizing. While the others are out shilling and promoting, Doc Emrick still is working for the guy at home watching the game. And he's brilliant.

Think about it: how many times has Doc turned to either Eddie Olczyk or John Davidson and asked him to expound on something the color man has just said. Doc's ego is not getting in the way here. He wants the color man to explain his point as best he can for the viewer at home. It's so shockingly simple and selfless and a total team move. Emrick puts the game and the broadcast above the spotlight.

Plus, whenever Emrick reads those drop-in ads for V-Cast, he sounds less like he is shilling and more like he's honestly giving us an option to watch the game in a different way. I mean, I know that a plug is a plug but Doc has the gravitas to make even this most jaded consumer think that Verizon might actually get people to watch TV on really tiny phones.

Eddie Olczyk is, for my money, just a lot of fun to listen to. Sure, he is prone to clichés at times but his enthusiasm and obvious love of the game comes through. He sounds more like a fan than a guy who has played hockey at it's highest level.

Pierre McGuire has a bit of a reputation as a shouter in Canada but on NBC, I am buying whatever he is selling. I've only heard his color work sporadically on Center Ice and for the WJC, and the guy is not afraid to have an opinion. Remember when he said that the Islanders had no idea how the draft works when they picked Robert Nilsson over Zach Parise? Hard to argue with that now, isn't it?

McGuire and Mike Milbury between periods are just great. Sometimes it is clunky as they shift from topic to topic, but that's good. Makes it real. Both guys are opinionated and both are willing to stand behind their comments. The league and NBC are getting everything they wanted when they hired Brett Hull to butt heads with Bill Clement when McGuire and Milbury dish on the league between periods. Hull hated Clement for some reason and while there are times Pierre and Mike don't agree on a topic, they're both smart enough to let it breathe and it never gets personal.

This past weekend, while we were all making peace with the standings and the Islanders' place in them, NBC had a great game to show us: Pittsburgh vs. Washington. Crosby vs. Ovechkin. Ovechkin vs. Malkin...which I must've have missed as a rivalry because it was the first I'd heard of it!

Early in the first period--and this illustrates my point--Alex Ovechkin took what could charitably be labeled "a run" at Malkin; who saw Ovechkin and kind of turned out
of the full contact. This is how a finely-tuned machine works:

Doc called the play--Eddie said that he heard there was bad blood between them--And Pierre spilled the rumor that Ovechkin had once punched Malkin's Russia-based agent in the face.

It was beautiful. Not the hit, that was not a great one, but the explanation. Each guy let the others do their job and ultimately, Pierre gets credit for the goal. Eddie and Doc get the assists. That's how TV is supposed to work!

The whole thing works so seamlessly that the viewers are left thinking they are a part of something special. The emotion is real, the enthusiasm is real, and the game is selling itself.

Now all we need is for those knuckleheads at USA Today to actually watch a game and pay attention.

For more info on NHL on NBC:
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/22939561/site/21683474/

Cue "The Famous Final Scene"

Yesterday it was announced that Mike Milbury was leaving the New York Islanders Islanders after what seemed like a freaking generation of being involved with the team. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, Milbury's departure comes right after the Phoenix Coyotes hired Don Maloney to be their new GM.

Milbury's leaving stirs up all sorts of ghosts for me. I may be the only one who admits to this, but I was excited as heck back in the day when Milbury was hired to be the team's coach by Maloney. Milbury had just been off of a very successful run in Boston--which he followed up with a not-so-successful stop-over at Boston College. And while it looked like a foolish move for Maloney--one of many--to hire a guy who would obviously be gunning for the GM post, I liked the move at the time. Let's face it: Milbury had me at "Screw the Rangers".

Mad Mike, as he named himself, was a great quote, to be sure. (Who will ever forget when he said of Palffy's agent, Paul Kraus: "It's too bad he lives in the city. He's depriving some small village of a pretty good idiot.") And you know what? The guy had big brass balls. He hung in there with all of the ownership crap that went on with the team. He was ordered to trade Kraus' client Ziggy Palffy; he was ordered to talk to the press about having the Coliseum condemned; and he was front and center during all of the John Spano nonsense. The guy had to do his job during the most trying times in the history of the franchise. He has worked for The Gang of Four; Spano; the thieving Milstein brothers; the absentee Picketts; and Lord knows who else.

As the nineties began, Maloney was in over his head. He was losing fan favorites like (1993 playoff ace) Glenn Healy (expansion draft) and trading for guys who reflected only faded glory like Ron Hextall. The fisherman logo and Milbury came in and classy Islander lifer Lorne Henning was shown the door. No one was going to be able to succeed under the circumstances wrought by Maloney (dirty Ranger) and the revolving ownership debacle. Not good times.

Eventually, under the penny-pinching ownership of the Milsteins and Steven Gluckstern, the team (Milbury) traded away and depleted the roster of any name players who might have been making market value like Zigmund Palffy (thank goodness the league stopped a trade to the Rangers); captain and resident do-gooder Trevor Linden; young defender and Milbury punching bag Bryan Berard; and the much-loved Richie Pilon...who went to the Rangers.

After the Islanders were saved by Charles Wang from the insanity of the Gluckstern/Milstein regime, Milbury was freed up to actually spend money and make trades for competitive purposes. Imagine that! His first big trade under new ownership is the one he will be always connected with: Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen to the Florida Panthers for Oleg Kvasha and Mark Parrish. For some reason, Milbury saw something in poor Oleg Kvasha that apparently no one else on the planet had. Kvasha was long on size and had flashed some skill here-and-there but the big man was incredibly short on want-to. With Luongo (a reported whiner while on the Island...you get the sense that Milbury doesn't have time for head cases) gone to Florida, that freed Mike up to select Rick DiPietro with the first selection in the entry draft. Not only had Milbury made a goaltender the first-overall pick for the first time in league history, he also passed over players like (gulp) Dany Heatley and (gack) Marian Gaborik in the process!

Yeah, you could say that Mike Milbury liked to stir it up a bit.

While no one could have really predicted the stardom that Bryan McCabe, Olli Jokinen and Todd Bertuzzi (however fleeting) would have achieved in new locales, the fact that these players flowered away from the Island was (is?) difficult for the fans to understand. Bertuzzi, in particular, had been given every opportunity to become more than he was for the Islanders and it just never worked out. One thing is for sure: all of them were thrown feet first into positions of importance and of leadership that none of them were able to handle at the time. Milbury knew that--EVERYONE knew that--and his trades were all designed to get better quickly rather than wait for a core of players to fulfill their potential together. That sort of plan takes time and nurturing and Mad Mike probably didn't think he had that kind of time to deal with. Truth is, with a dwindling and increasingly angry fan base, the team had to make some good faith moves in a hurry. Were they the right ones? Probably not.

By the time the 2001-02 season rolled around, Milbury and Wang wanted to get better in a hurry. Milbury traded for contract malcontents Alexei Yashin and Michael Peca from the Senators and Sabres, respectively, for more draft picks (like--ouch--Jason Spezza) and other young players. Then, in another stroke of luck, by sheer virtue of crapping out better than any other team in the league the year before, the Isles were also able to claim a goaltender with Stanley Cup pedigree like Chris Osgood (when he was dropped by the Red Wings) with the first pick in the waiver draft. I defy anyone reading this to claim that they weren't overjoyed going into that season. It looked like the Islanders were finally a team on the come. I know that I was freaking delirious through most of the year.

The Islanders opened the 01-02 season on a tear, going 11-1-1-1, and handily made the playoffs under budding genius Peter Laviolette. The first round series with the Maple Leafs was incredibly hard-hitting and should have been the jump off point to bigger and better fortunes for the Islanders. But of course, after a game four penalty shot victory for the team off the stick of Shawn Bates, Gary Roberts creamed Kenny Jonsson and Darcy Tucker did what he did to future golfing buddy Michael Peca in game five. Both guys were out for the rest of the series and by the time game seven rolled around, the Islanders were deflated, defeated, and white as ghosts. The team was dispatched rather easily and all Islander fans were left with a sinking feeling because we knew what was coming next: more crap.

The Isles made the playoffs the following season but rarely showed any emotion or fire like they had the year before. Oh, yeah--and speaking of fire, future Stanley Cup winning coach Laviolette was dumped after the season in another one of those Mad Mike WTF moments. Steve Stirling was promoted from the Bridge and Milbury proclaimed that Stirling would be the last coach he ever hired. And he was; so Milbury wasn't a liar.

All of this brings us to last summer. We all know what happened and there's no reason to go over it again. Suffice to say that the New York Islanders are on the precipice again of breaking through as a potential league power. Rick DiPietro is looking like he is going to be every bit the goalie that Milbury thought he would be when he drafted Ricky over Heatley and Gaborik. New general manager Garth Snow showed that he was willing to take a chance when he traded for Ryan Smyth. There's a good leadership core on the Island now with character players like Mike Sillinger and Brendan Witt. There are promising newcomers like Bruno Gervais and Jeff Tambellini. We now face another summer where we need the ball to break the right way. Milbury had his chances to shuffle the deck and he tried like hell--sometimes under some pretty cruddy circumstances--but it just didn't work out.

Yesterday, Mike Milbury gave up his cushy VP job of the Islanders to pursue a new job in the NHL. Somehow, selling tickets and managing arena football teams wasn't enough for a guy like Mad Mike. Even after it all, the guy still wants another kick at the can. Is he going to get it? Somehow, I think he is. Someone out there is going to look at the seemingly atrocious track record and realize that the guy did his best to try and turn around the fortunes of a team that many considered as dead as the fish in a Gorton's fish stick. Maybe Milbury isn't the guy who should be pulling the trigger. Maybe he is best as a guy who is second in command because of his reactionary ways.

One more thing about Mike Milbury. The guy really needs to write a book about his experiences running the New York Islanders. He's a guy who lived and worked on the front lines of so much drama that it would have to be one heck of a read.