31. Boston Bruins
The broadcast: New England Sports Network (NESN) carries Bruins games, with Jack Edwards on play-by-play and Andy Brickley doing colour.
The results: NESN does have its defenders around the league, but they’re outnumbered six-to-one by its detractors, making it by far the most loathed broadcast in hockey. Out-of-market viewers were three times more likely to mention Boston as one of the worst broadcasts in hockey than they were any other team. Local fans tend to be more lenient, but even they are underwhelmed by the product on offer.
Brickley’s commentary generally gets positive reviews in and out of market, but otherwise respondents were merciless.
In market, the most consistent complaint was one of presentation. The screen can be cluttered: for the first period of a January game against Nashville I watched, in addition to the standard scoreboard in the upper left corner of the screen, there was a NESN logo in the upper right and a broad black ticker at the bottom for the first half of the first period. Despite this barrage of graphics, a shot clock for the game was not included.
“Camera work, cuts, replays, graphics, etc. are atrocious,” wrote one respondent, summarizing the feelings of many. “They run a TICKER DURING A HOCKEY GAME.”
Edwards’ passion wins him some fans locally, and even outside Boston there are people who like his work, with one non-Bruins respondent calling him “the definition of chaotic good.” Collectively they’re a drop in the ocean.
No other figure in NHL broadcasting attracted the same level of vitriol that NESN’s play-by-play man garnered.
“I would rather get a colonoscopy from Captain Hook than hear Jack Edwards announce a hockey game,” wrote a voter in Columbus in the most memorable of the many, many comments listing him as the worst play-by-play man in the NHL.
The bottom line: The league’s most biased broadcast is despised outside its local market and doesn’t inspire fans in Boston either.