Dear God, don’t ever let Barry Melrose broadcast a hockey game again.
In a rather important postseason duel between the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks last night, ESPN, The World-Wide Leader, tossed his hockey mascot into the dressing room alongside ultra-pro Steve Levy. Melrose had been mostly a bane on college hockey shows with John BucciGross for the past decade, as the latter was basically waiting to hit the button on his catchphrases while it was clear that Melrose had no previous college hockey games at all had seen.
Listening to him last night, again in a game that really mattered when the Kings were desperately clinging to the last playoff spot in the Pacific (they would win 2-1) and it was a big rivalry game, it was obvious that Melrose didn’t do it. I haven’t watched an NHL game since he coached the Lightning for an hour and a half a decade ago. On the other hand, considering how that coaching period went, he probably didn’t see any games then either.
Highlights included Melrose being completely shocked that Phillip Danault, one of last summer’s biggest free-agent signings, had scored 25 goals for the Kings. While it is indeed a career high for Danault, he has cracked 40 points three times before in his career and scored at that pace last year. He’s always had offensive talent.
It was also a love fest for Jonathan Quick as Melrose spoke about his career as if he were the love child of Patrick Roy and Davey Crockett. Quick’s career savings percentage is .913 and this year it’s .908. Both are the definition of “well, maybe”.
Between it all, Melrose occasionally grunted at what he was seeing while giving absolutely no insight save for the occasional buzzword he learned 30 years ago. Hockey fans make a lot more than that, and we don’t really make a lot.
