Let’s Face It, Roger’s Hockey Product Is Downright Boring

Starting with a disclaimer might seem unusual, but here we go. I have to admit, the current state of the organizations led by Mark Shapiro, Brendan Shanahan, and Masai Ujiri has completely drained my interest in Toronto sports. When it comes to the Jays, I didn’t watch, read, or listen to anything after the trade deadline until the state of the union presser. As for the Maple Leafs, I’m still in hibernation, and my disconnect with the Raptors began two deadlines ago.

How bad is it? I occasionally glance at the daily radio segments, but I’ve listened to fewer than four full shows, including Overdrive. My disillusionment with the teams makes it hard to justify consuming content from media that spends a lot of time discussing them. Instead, I’ve been watching more college football and engaging with more “real-world” content.

I did watch the Amazon Prime NHL game. As I noted on X (formerly Twitter), I found the production unremarkable, which I mean as a compliment. Amazon didn’t do anything to upset me as a viewer. The play-by-play crew, led by John Forslund, was polished and engaging, and the game looked beautiful. Adnan Virk was excellent—funny, charismatic, and a pleasure to watch. Andi Petrillo, however, was underutilized, and Mark Messier seemed somewhere between unprepared and nervous. Still, it was clear that someone had done their homework. Forslund and the crew used footage from prior games to highlight key moments as they unfolded—nothing mind-numbing, nothing like the infamous glow puck, just solid, old-fashioned execution.

This past Saturday, I found myself with a few hours to kill and thought, “Why not check out Hockey Night in Canada?” It was my first Maple Leafs game and my first Rogers game of the year. I missed most of the pre-game but caught everything except the last ten minutes of the Maple Leafs-Rangers game. As the game went on, I had a lot of thoughts but chose to follow the old adage: if you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything. So, I stayed silent on social media.

Later that evening, as I sat down to dinner, my phone blew up. I assumed it was related to world events. Instead, it was this tweet from Mike Stephens:

Hockey Night in Canada used to be an event. Appointment viewing. Core memory stuff. Now its just betting ad slop anchored by an intermission panel with the conversation vibe of the reject table at a community centre wedding.

— Mike Stephens (@mikeystephens81) October 20, 2024

I slept on Mike’s words and, with the second Amazon game approaching, felt compelled to write something.

In 2007, William Houston nearly committed blasphemy by suggesting that NBC had outdone CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada during playoff coverage. He wrote:

“When it comes to televising a hockey game, NBC can’t match the experience and reputation of CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada. But the U.S. network compensates with a big effort and an aggressive up-close approach. It paid off handsomely… NBC, producing its first Stanley Cup final telecast, equaled and, at a few key points, bettered CBC.”

He continued:

“But Hockey Night should stop inflicting us with setups involving fans outside the arena, the ones in which adults wearing Senators jerseys bellow into the camera: ‘Stay tuned when the Ducks take on the Senators in our house,’ followed by the inevitable ‘On Hockey Night in Canada—woooo.’ Watching this from loud, middle-aged people, not once but twice in the pregame show, is not amusing or appealing. It’s just stupid and irritating.”

Here we are, 17 years later, and Roger’s hockey coverage is like parsley on a dish: it’s there, it may look okay, but no one really likes it or finds it useful. In other words, it’s boring. It’s reactive TV.

I’m not sure what happened over there, but all creativity and imagination seem gone. They have a model, and they stick to it—but the problem is, it’s beyond stale. In 2024, it’s no longer relevant. It’s not must-see TV; it’s background noise.

We live in a world of immediacy. When something happens in hockey, 15-20 people tweet about it, and there are hundreds of comments. By the time Saturday rolls around, nothing is really “news” anymore. The panel they use to review the game is dull. No one has much to say. Occasionally, Kevin Bieksa adds some color, but those moments are rare. The second-period segment with Elliotte and Ron was actually painful to watch—not because they aren’t good at what they do, but because the content and format felt as stale as a three-week-old loaf of bread.

It pains me to say this, but even the great Chris Cuthbert seems tired. He’s not making mistakes, but he sounds genuinely uninterested. For the first time, it feels like he’s just doing his job.

The entire production is boring. Stephens was right—it’s the opposite of must-see TV. For someone like me, already depressed by the lack of success from the “home team,” it’s another reason to drift further away from fandom.

As a Canadian living in the U.S., this hurts. I’m fortunate to have options for content consumption. I never thought the day would come when I’d prefer American coverage of hockey over Canadian, but there’s no doubt TNT and ESPN are producing more engaging content than what we’re seeing in Canada.

Have too many producers, managers, and talent been let go, leaving us with the result of years of cuts? Maybe. So many promises were made when the Rogers NHL deal was announced. What remains is a sad product, seemingly on autopilot, with few people seeming to care about quality.

I hope someone at Bettman Inc. is paying attention because the quality of hockey coverage has seriously slipped where it should be best. It’s hard to watch and even harder to stomach.