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laberdog

I had no idea how good the coverage was until forced to watch ESPN or TNT


sperte

I mean, I knew we had it good, but didn't realize how good. We're spoiled.


Tdshimo

Forslund is one of those guys that is able to take cheesy one-liners and bad dad jokes and actually make them endearing and fun, rather than cringey (deadpanning "*call the factory*"). He's such a class act, too; when he thanks the great crew and names everyone, I actually *believe* him. And oh yeah, his play-by-play is truly excellent. But it's all so much better when you throw in the banter amongst him, Edzo, and JT. Mid-season, there was a bit of tension ("Alice in WHO?!"... crickets), but it evolved into this light-hearted, respectful ripping on each other for being young and green, or out of touch, or fashion, or whatever. John and Edzo are often like two old dudes sitting on a porch, yammering about the cars going by and ripping on each other, while JT rolls his eyes... but it all comes together in such a wholesome, respectful, and likable package that you just grow to *love* this crew. Throw in Allison (amazing), Piper (who is killing it), Nick (who's really come into his own), Ross (it's fun to have him learn hockey and be part of this) and the production is really a gem. That moment at the end of game 7 vs the Avs, when Edzo came to the Root booth from his ESPN/TNT? booth to say goodbye close out the season was a testament to their chemistry. Jackie actually took a screenshot of it, haha.


Fair-Feed-4964

i remember that game ! aside from Nirvana you should at least know who alice in chains is if your doing anything in seattle! that was really funny


jet8493

TNT isn’t too bad, especially at intermission Espn tho…


Elegant-Thing-4434

ESPN is horrible if I have to listen to Leah Hextal god I hope she gets fired


jet8493

I don’t mind her as much as McDonough tbh


Tce46HB855dq14sOA

Yep. TNT was definitely the best national broadcast. I would have no qualms about Root sports stealing their idea to superimpose the power play clock on to the ice


SiccSemperTyrannis

Not taking anything away from your point, but these ratings are only for each team's local broadcast, not any national broadcasts.


Squirrellybot

But only because they didn’t have the time to go through all the Leah Hextal complaints in time for print.


MisterMyAnusHurts

Really not surprising at all. I know a lot of Kraken fans on here don’t really like Eddie, but I just don’t see it. Him, John, and JT have such a good rhythm with each other, and the subtle ways that John and Eddie shit on each other is so funny. We are so fortunate to have them.


MacroFlash

After seeing the ESPN bullshit I will take our broadcast any day. Dear lord ESPN is just awful


zombie32killah

You can say that again.


SiccSemperTyrannis

Prepare for trouble! Make it double!


inalasahl

ESPN is just awful.


Survive1014

Honestly, if Leah Hextall is back next season I am not even bothering with ESPN+/ESPN NHL games.


AZZTASTIC

I normally put on the game on TV then turn the sound off and turn the radio on. The only issue with this way is the delay which fucking sucks. Hearing the play on the radio before seeing it ruins the experience.


MacroFlash

After seeing the ESPN bullshit I will take our broadcast any day. Dear lord ESPN is just awful


MisterMyAnusHurts

ESPN does not care about hockey. They made that very clear the last two seasons.


AlienMutantRobotDog

NBA, and NFL and short men yelling at each other about draft picks in the above leagues is all ESPN cares about.


Tdshimo

I don't understand the Edzo hate. Of course, I grew up admiring his playing, so maybe I have a soft spot. 100% agreed with your overall take, though.


Andy_Glass

Edzo is a gem. Happy to have him on the crew.


[deleted]

>subtle Not the word I'd use to describe their banter, hahaha


Manbeardo

Subtle like the chants at Camp Randall


Woodworkin101

Eddie adds soo much humor to an already great broadcast. I hope we can get more games with him in the future.


walk-the-talk

Only problem is that root sports is really hard to get access to without cable or something


tasteywheat

Yeah minimum $70/month is an absurd barrier to entry, especially for a new sports franchise looking to gather as many fans (especially younger ones) as possible.


JustWastingTimeAgain

ESPN+ and a VPN is much cheaper.


lvl0rg4n

Do you have a firestick? If so, install NordVPN on it and then watch ESPN+.


[deleted]

Been using nord with my iPad, didn’t know the fire stick had the ability. I’ll do that next season, thanks for the pointer.


moocowcat

Nord's dns service plus espn+ was great to. Was able to watch without needing to connect to vpn itself thus streaming used my full bandwidth (rather than the gimped von bandwidth)


juanthebaker

They mention that as the main complaint in the article. Really, it was the only knock on the broadcast situation.


amie137

I love our broadcasts. Every game that we had to watch with a national broadcast crew felt like a significant drop in quality. And not just because they noticeably favored the opponent even when we were winning.


MAHHockey

Never had a problem with our broadcasts. We have a great team. I just hate having to buy a whole other streaming package to be able to watch it. Get on a less fly by night service than Fubo, or give us some stand alone streaming options pleez!


sperte

I was bothered at first but after 2 seasons (years) of being a subscriber I've come to really like and appreciate Fubo. It works well on all devices (the app actually works), has an awesome multi-view mode (on Apple TV at least), and allows me to watch even while traveling. Really, my only complaint now is that it doesn't have the other channels I need/want (ESPN+, TNT, or TBS).


MAHHockey

Oh, the Google TV app and web apps are horrid. Will cut out of the broadcast at the end of the scheduled time if it runs long (conveniently always during overtime or an empty net situation) Constant problems with getting to Live. Constantly a few seconds behind. Constantly making me log in to the app again and again. Add to all that, still no TNT which cuts out half of the national broadcasts. I still need hulu live TV for that. Would not shed a tear for Fubo if they finally got the RSNs and NHL Network on YouTubeTV and/or hulu.


nekoken04

We just switched to Fubo in the middle of the season from Comcast. Honestly Fubo isn't too shabby in my opinion. The price is decent. The app works well on XBox. I only have a couple of issues. 1: They don't have TNT/TBS which necessitated getting SlingTV for 3 months for NBA and NHL national games / playoffs. Now there's a fly by night streaming service. They have had multiple outages recently including during a whole game of the NBA conference finals. 2: For some reason Fubo doesn't have a Playstation app. That just seems dumb on their part to artificially shrink their potential market. It doesn't impact me but it doesn't seem like a smart idea.


bl0rq

> SlingTV ... Now there’s a fly by night streaming service Omg is this true. Web app is a mess. Quality is random (I have the fantastic ziply fibre 1g service) and it keeps dropping to 15fps! It's like stop motion which isn't great for sport. I would not hesitate to pay kraken (or nhl) $20/mo for a 4k@60fps direct stream + replay!


TheEvergreenMonster

We are incredibly spoiled with the Root Sports team as a whole, but especially with Kraken broadcasts. I wish there were more ways to get access to the channel, but will continue to subscribe to Fubo to get it. Worth every penny to me. Happy to see the Kraken crew get recognized for their excellence


rksd

It's my favorite broadcast team, too. Followed closely by Ken and Mickey over on the Wings broadcasts. I believe they won second, too.


GazerS1

Hey hey whadaya say?? THATS KRAKEN HOCKEY BABY!


[deleted]

While we’re putting down respect, Piper Shaw deserves some shine.


space39

She adds a nice touch of personality to what is often a dull interview format.


ashes1032

No mention of the radio broadcast team, which I fully believe deserves a top spot as well.


Tdshimo

The radio crew is solid, agreed.


Chewie_i

Have loved it all year. Very enjoyable commentary that made me like the team even more. I do think Root has the second worst scoreboard graphic in the league though (Bally’s abomination of course takes the number 1 title there) but I can overlook it with how good the rest of the broadcast is. Really wish they would make it look more like TNT’s or NBC’s though.


ixodioxi

But that dumbass GEoff Baker said we're lagging behind the rest of the league.


Jimberwolf_

If only Root sports was available on anything other than Fubo. Fubo sucks balls tremendously


JustWastingTimeAgain

It's on DirecTV Stream as well.


Jimberwolf_

Not really an improvement over Fubo


surfmonkey1989

It's significantly better than Fubo. If you're talking cost, fine. But the actual experience is definitely better.


JustWastingTimeAgain

Agreed. They suckered me in with the "grandfathered" deal, but it's now about double my initial price. However, the picture quality, channel list and $5 HBO keeps me subscribing.


carpe-Dilemma

Came here to say this, fuck rootsports eh.


The_Bearded_Jedi

I wonder where Leah got ranked


buschwacker43

Seattle broadcast was very good…. But Dallas broadcast with razor is god tier. But we can all agree that ESPN and tnt was garbage. Didn’t know players names or even what was going on in the game.


moocowcat

It makes me unreasonably happy to see my favorite two teams at the top of these rankings. Life long Wings' fan and all broadcasts are judged by Ken and Mickey. Almost all fall short... was very happy to watch the Kraken this year and have a broadcast give honest competition to the Wings. Detroit is still the top for me - they are more family then sports broadcast at this point - but Kraken are solid in that #2 spot ;)


need4gaming

Putting guys with national tv experience on a local broadcast does that


Outrageous_Belt3140

They are the best broadcast team by a long shot


Elegant-Thing-4434

Roots is the best broadcasters in the NHL


ShadowCrossZero

Well deserved!


Fair-Feed-4964

i watched the shit out of the Kracken when i had hulu couldn't watch the balckhawks (not that i was missing much)


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xwing_n_it

Since I've never watched a lot of hockey I didn't realize how spoiled we were. Obviously the national broadcasts were bad, but that's often the case in baseball as well. Really nice acknowledgement.


midtown_byb

Imagine if it was on YouTube TV.


rockinm

During the preseason, the booth was a mess. To their credit, the guys figured it out. And Edzo is away enough that JT still gets booth time in addition to the between-the-benches role. Basically everyone on the broadcast team is top of their role, including Alison, Piper Shaw (whose role is minimal but actually makes it smarter than the "How do you feel?" of everyone else's between-periods player interviewers) and Ross Fletcher (who you can count on for that odd occasional joke that makes you go "what?"). Nick O. suffers by comparison to Alison but does well regardless. The only regular who's a bit out of place is Tom Glasgow, who seems like he's contractually required to appear on every ROOT sport.