Dear Mr. Robertson -
I read that the Wild is "satisfied" with the team's broadcast announcers, as they prepare to enter into contract negotiations with them.
As far as Messers Kurtz and Reid go, I - as a consumer of your broadcasters' work - couldn't agree more. Kurtz and Reid do a great job on the radio and, on the occasions where I have no video available for a Wild game (I live in New York, so I am only able to catch around one Wild game per season in person), being able to tune them in on an audio feed is a more-than adequate substitution.
Sadly, the same can not be said for the television "talent" of Terhaar and Greenlay.
Simply put, those two are a disgrace to the "State of Hockey".
Further, they impugn the Wild organization's support of the "State of Hockey" marketing campaign every single time they're on the air.
I realize they work for the Minnesota Wild, and that distinction (as opposed to, say, working, proprietarily, for CBC or Versus) affords them a degree of "Wild-centric" attitude in their commentary. However I feel that they exceed what would be an acceptible level of parochialism on a consistant basis - to the team's detriment.
Mr. Terhaar, in particular, elevates his "homerism" to an unrepentant art form. This offends the coherant viewer on several levels. First, it's unnecessary. Minnesotans pride ourselves on our hockey savvy, by in large. Given the regional breadth of the broadcast, Terhaar should feel comfortable speaking "to" the hockey-smart Minnesotans who don't need any extra sunshine blown up their collective backside about their team. Second, whenever he's whining about an alleged "missed call" against the opposition or some other injustice befallen the Wild, he's not providing play-by-play - you know, doing his job. Third, he continuously makes these ridiculous claims of improprietary against the Wild without benefit of factual support, precedent or background - and the effect, anyway, is that he has no idea what he's talking about. The State of Hockey deserves better.
Mr. Greenlay, while less Wild-centric in general than Terhaar, simply fails to offer enough of the game-within-a-game insight that a former player/color analyst exists to provide. To be fair, I find that the insight he does offer is interesting, if not enlightening. I find him the less-odious of the two by a comfortable margin.
My recommendation is to dump Terhaar without hesitation, and find a more professional and hockey savvy play-by-play announcer. I feel this will elevate Greenlay's game as well, if only in providing him a more stable foundation from which to educate the masses on the goings on in a professional ice hockey game.
Thanks, and have a great summer!
Nick
4 comments:
AMEN. I love Tom Reid and Bob Kurtz, but the TV dudes have GOT TO GO. Their horrible announcing is an embarrassment to the organization.
Nick, you are way-y-y too nice to the VP-Comunications about this. Let's just call Terhaar and Greenlay for what they really are -- that is, God-awful -- and push for real announcers who can get excited but yet not harp on bad calls, bad breaks, etc.
Between Terhaar's whining, his voice constantly cracking and Greenlay's consistent pointing out of the obvious, these two have to GO. The fans have spoken of this in nearly every Wild-related forum imaginable, yet they somehow hang on. Why?
They work cheap...
I was able to handle them at first, but when they went total homerists during the playoffs, I wanted to shoot them in the face (I wouldn't actually do that, but you get my point).
Well, it was either that or when Greenlay said "He delivered that like a big ol' sub sandwich!".
I vote Nick as the new play-by-play announcer. Who's with me? ;)
I vote we replace them both. I can't stand either of them. I think they are both equally God-awful. I agree that Kurtz and Reid can stay. But there really does have to be a better tandem for TV then the too buffoons who are so aptly named Dumb and Dumber by us Russotans.
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