Frozen Frenzy Is A Good Idea That Can't Be Left To ESPN

Like most everything the NHL does, there's a good idea in there somewhere, but it's completely concealed by its and its partner's incompetence and laziness.

A fan of any sport has to accept that whatever they love most will try to copy the NFL about something. No one can seem to recognize that the NFL is a unicorn for a variety of reasons, as well as an actual game that perfectly aligns with one's television. It breaks your TV up into an easy-to-follow grid, for fuck's sake. The camera takes you to the ball. There's plenty of stoppages to do whatever you want for 40 seconds, and if you miss anything, there's a replay no more than a few seconds away. It all comes together for football. There are just some things that other sports can't replicate.

That won't stop them from trying. With the success of NFL Redzone, everyone wants their own version. Sadly, no other sport has a strict game window once a week like the NFL does, but no matter, they'll engineer one. MLB has its Big Inning, where they can't even consistently keep the same game in the same split-screen window, and the NHL tries to jigger one up once or twice a season with Frozen Frenzy, when every team plays and the puck drops are staggered so if a fan were so inclined, they can catch a little of every game.

We have to start with the absolute lunacy of the NHL planning this for an October Tuesday when World Series Game 4 was on opposite. It's not like this was Game 5 or 6 or 7 that would be in the "if necessary" category. This was Game 4. It was always going to happen! While more sports need to accept their "niche" status and work from there, something like Frozen Frenzy is always going to be aimed at a more casual fan. The nutjobs like me are watching hockey like this most nights, anyway.

How do you plan on getting people to it when they're tied up with the biggest game baseball has to offer? The NBA also still very much has new car smell in the last week of October. Especially as they're kicking off new TV deals this season and are trying to put on a show in the opening throes to get everyone accustomed to seeking out the 17 different streaming channels they'll need.

The perfect night for this? The first night after the Olympics. There should be some mainstream buzz after that tournament. It's at the end of February, when literally nothing is going on in the North American sports world (some of us will be tied up with Liverpool's relegation battle elsewhere). The NBA is in their post-All Star break doldrums. College basketball hasn't even started their conference tournaments yet. It is the lowlands where any sort of sporting tower could be seen for miles (does that work? Are there towers in the Netherlands and Belgium? There was that one that Brenden Gleeson threw himself off of, right?).

So there's one problem. The biggest, though, is who the NHL trusts to handle this occasion, which might be why it was stuck behind the scenery for the World Series. ESPN knew that last night was a dead night for their interests, they don't have an NBA game, so they'll just stick what is supposed to be a big night for hockey there.

I know that for the NHL and a lot of its fans, getting back on ESPN was something of a holy grail. We all wanted to hear the fucking song again, and see Steve Levy to bring back memories of Penguins-Flyers at 2am all those years ago. I know ESPN was in its belt-collector phase, where it thought having all four major sports under its wing was something worth having. Good thing Rob Manfred disabused them of that notion, in all his geniusness.

That doesn't mean they were going to put any time or effort into it. The NHL got more than enough money from them, but one wonders if the benefits of being on a channel where they were anywhere near the most important sports product may have been worth more.

ESPN makes it clear that it doesn't really care about how it puts hockey on your screen. Did they find new studio hosts? Of course fucking not. They just had Levy and ol' Cyrano De Bucci standing around and just tossed them a bone. Levy is obviously fine, but Buccigross is an abomination in both studio and (worse) in the booth. Between grunts and catchphrases, it doesn't feel like Buccigross actually watches all that much hockey other than what he's contracted to. It's not even clear he's watching the game he's contracted to for any more than discovering where his catchphrases can go. I know ESPN is basically only constructed of men in their 40s and 50s trying to sound cool, but it makes most of us who just want to watch a game think about the nobility of suicide.

Of course, with ESPN, it can always get worse, and it does with their choice of studio "analysts." Mark Messier was just about their first hire, and no one bothered to notice that he hasn't had anything to say in 30 years. They just grabbed a name they could splash on press releases and website headlines that might have a chance of getting a non-hockey fan to say, "Oh I've heard of him. Isn't he the one who looks like third in command to a Muppet villain?"

Between Buccigross trying to sell T-shirts and Messier staring blankly while trying to recite another anecdote about playing a game in Winnipeg in 1987, literally nothing of any consequence happens in the ESPN NHL studio. This year, they've added T.J. Oshie, who could actually be a presence, but is left totally stranded by the improv class for detention students that Buccigross and Messier are producing. Sometimes, it's John Tortorella, another who could be a galvanizing analyst given his forthrightness and distinct voice, as well as experience. But he's not pushed to do anything other than kind of mumble.

Those are on the nights when P.K. Subban isn't doing his Branson version of Charles Barkley act.

As far as just Frozen Frenzy goes, hockey is not football and doesn't really lend itself to wraparound coverage. In hockey, a goal or penalty or big save can spring from anywhere. It's not nearly as regimented as football with its distinct rhythm. It's too easy to miss something, or to get stuck in some meaningless passage of play. That's why the fucking thing is called REDZONE. Because in football, we know when it's more likely that a team is going to score. The sport builds to that. Hockey doesn't build.

To pull something like this off properly, it would probably be better to follow Peacock's "Goal Rush" model, which is just ganked from the Premier League itself. Which is that one game is put center stage and broadcast like normal. The scores from the other games are on a constant ticker on the bottom of the screen, and the table and other stats are updated live on one side. Whenever a goal or save or bad miss or red card happens in another game, they cut it to show it. It's born out of how "Five Live" works on BBC radio, if you've ever had the distinct pleasure of listening to that on a Saturday morning.

Pick one game to feature, show it as a whole, and then update with whatever else is going on in the league as it happens. Maybe that's really tough to pull off with 16 games, even with the staggered starts. Perhaps it would be better with two game windows, 7 and 10 ET. Eight games in each. Then it's pretty clean.

And again, put it on a place in the calendar where it can shine, and also be properly promoted. How many days in advance did you know this was happening? One? Any? Do it after the Olympics, and the NHL would have a full two weeks to hype it as more people are drawn in during the tournament. "If you like this, look what we have for you when it's over!" Also, put it somewhere that really cares. I'm not even sure that's NHL Network. Give TNT a go? They don't have anything else.

There is something here. But like pretty much everything they do, whatever it is is lost and wasted by the NHL.