shmenguin wrote:maguire being a tool is a pretty new thing. a couple years ago he was unequivocally the best color man in hockey. somewhere along the line he got goofy and started with the contrived, bold stuff. i think NBC must have intentionally turned him into the same brand of talking head/blogger type that has ruined sports analysis in america (they have to keep up with ESPN after all, the originators of crappy analysis).
I don't see a ton of Canadian broadcasts, but the biggest differences between American hockey coverage and Canadian hockey coverage I've noticed is that the Canadians seem to set up their broadcasts so the viewer gets the best exposure to the game going on that they can provide. They let the game speak for itself.
American broadcasts try to get people's attention with on-screen graphics and manufactured controversy between studio hosts. Between that and the mass amount of cross-promotion you get (even while the play is going on!

), it's just nice they manage to squeeze the live action into the broadcast. The best thing that could ever happen to the American hockey viewer is for NBC or Versus to just say, "we're not really sure what we're doing with this sport, let's either bring in someone from TSN or CBC to run the show, or just let them do all the production and we'll piggyback their feed."
And get John Buccigross to anchor all studio segments and a nightly wrap-up show.
