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The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

dolan said:
If they would take off the Gopher thongs for once they'd actually be pretty good. They are so pro-Gopher that I have trouble listening to them. Even when the Gophers aren't playing (Final Five weekend ahem) they were still anti-Sioux. But I guess i'd take that over BM who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
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I see no problem with being anti-Sioux.
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

Cross Check said:
Hate his near total ignorance of the subject matter he's supposed to be covering, namely college hockey. Love that he's still rocking a mullet though.
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I agree, I don't think he knows that much about college hockey, his picks are always way wrong, every NCAA Frozen Four Selection show, or him popping in on Sports Center at the start of the NHL Playoffs his picks and favorites always seem to be the complete opposite of what actually happens.

Get rid of the Barry "The Mullet" Melrose I think between the many broadcasters on regional FSNs and Comcast Sports, CBS College Sports, NHL teams, NHL Network, VS,. and NBC there's lots of qualified comentators to kick his butt out of the broadcast booth!
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

I love Barry!! I'm a Melrosexual who enjoys a little Boob Norton reach around every now and then.
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

aallenpollreisz said:
Though he's a moron, I'm pro-Melrose. I do not have a valid explanation as to why, however.
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I'm sort of in this camp. I think it's because my wife despises him and his hair. Doesn't he chew tobacco on the set?

His shtick is mildly amusing and I loved that one commercial at the barber shop........the guy getting his mullet cut and he pipes in with, "I wouldn't go any shorter."

Of course if he knew anything about the teams and players that would really help. A lot.

Plus he's a Marty Turco fan, facts and performance this year be ****ed. :)

One final point: just because he likes Cornell doesn't mean that they're not good. At least I think that's the case.
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

You know who is good? Gary Thorne. Love that voice. Too bad he doesn't get to do much hockey. Probably two games a year. :eek:

He does play by play for the Orioles now.
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

Biddco said:
You know who is good? Gary Thorne. Love that voice. Too bad he doesn't get to do much hockey. Probably two games a year.
He does play by play for the Orioles now.
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BINGO! I'd much rather listen to him than Melrose with his salty mullet or Norton with his triple chin.
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

I like Thorne and Melrose. Gary does a great job with the play by play and Barry adds a little flare, though a bit on the greasy side. Think Melrose is warming to college hawkey after a few years of working it.....he seemed pretty anti-college when he started...now he simply falls in love with certain teams and players.

Norton needs to be retired...........he's just painful.
 
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Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

acs64 said:
I like Thorne and Melrose. Gary does a great job with the play by play and Barry adds a little flare, though a bit on the greasy side. Think Melrose is warming to college hawkey after a few years of working it.....he seemed pretty anti-college when he started...now he simply falls in love with certain teams and players.

Norton needs to be retired...........he's just painful.
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It was nice to see melrose do some back tracking last night with both games , dont think he exspected the outcome , he did pay compliments and mention both teams deserved to be in the finals. His commentary lacks stlye without much thought never knowing what comes out next. Will give him credit he was a little more informed this time around.
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

Melrose began his coaching career in 1987 when he led the Medicine Hat Tigers to the WHL’s Memorial Cup Title. He also coached the Seattle Thunderbirds for the 1988-89 season and the Adirondack Red Wings of the American Hockey League for three seasons (1989-92). Melrose guided the Red Wings to the Calder Cup championship in 1991. He also served as the team’s General Manager during his final two seasons.

In March 1998, the native of Canada was sworn in as a U.S. citizen. Born July 15, 1956, Melrose is married with two children.
- Barry Melrose BIO ESPN.com


See Barry Melrose is everything that College Hockey isnt. There is no mention of him having any connection to collegiate sports. Not that a broadcaster has to have attended college to broadcast a sport (insert your own Syracuse joke here) but there should be some vague connection somewhere, somehow.
He has no reason to change- we are stuck with him until the NHL network can raise enough money to pay him for their QMJHL game of the week. This week features 16 and 17 year old frenchies speaing each other until a bench brawl ensues and one of Partick Roy's offspring faces criminal charges... Should be a barn burner.

Bob Norton is the man... The simple fact that (even with press notes) he can recall where each member of UAF played squirt hockey and who their coach and the carrer choices of their linemates were is VERY impressive.

What about Doc Emerick? He may have a day off between broadcasting EVERY game on MSG, NBC, and Versus ...
 
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Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

Melrose is the unfortunate result of television coverage. I still have the option of going back to the old broadcast (turn off the TV and turn on the radio IF my team is playing). If push comes to shove I have to admit that Melrose is better than the generic dunderheads that would probably take his place (Ron Johnson in MN).

I am from Minnesota, cheer for the Gophers, and love Bob Norton and his Eastern bias. I look forward to it every year. He is what is best about college hockey, undying and sometime irrational allegiances.
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

Puck Swami said:
Barry Melrose is a brand. Taking a page from the Don Cherry school of 'unique screen presence', Melrose has extended his mediocre coaching career into a well-paying ESPN analyst gig by carving out his differentitiation from the standard bland sycophant types of TV people.

The look of the brand is fronted by his distinctive mullet, paired with a loud suit and supported by blustery blowhard comments that nobody else would say. Don Cherry called Melrose "Billy Ray Cypress" (sic) on CBC TV for years, in homage to the early 90s mullet of Miley Cyrus' one-hit, Achy-breaky father, Billy Ray Cyrus. The difference between Cherry and Melrose is that Cherry does more homework, and is a more of Canadian nationalist/traditionalist. Cherry's blowhard comments are almost always traceable to that bedrock.

Melrose's bombast is more all over the board, and his condescension to college hockey is reflected in his lack of preparation and his lack of care. ESPN doesn't really care about college hockey either, and that's why they don't care about his lack of preparation or his bombast. They think Melrose will add some hockey cred that might not otherwise be there for the casual audience, and to an extent, they are right about that. Melrose is at home in the NHL world, and for Joe six-pack who channelsurfs into the NCAA hockey broadcast on ESPN, seeing the Mullet does gives the NCAA brand of hockey some level of credibility...

ESPN's late Tom Mees, who loved college hockey and cared deepy about broadcasting the NCAA Frozen Four with respect and serious effort, would be flabbergasted to see Melrose's lack of preparation and the insulting condescension that comes out of Melrose's mouth. I miss Mees and so does our game.

But this is our reality. ESPN broadcasts college hockey because it must as part of a larger NCAA deal for other sports. I wish we could get someone with more love of the college game, but we are stuck with Mullet. It's a curse for the serious college hockey fan. And while Bob Norton makes some ears bleed with his regionalism, his accent and his constant references to player origins, at least he's genuine, prepared and cares about our game.
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Thank you, I couldn't have posted better! Barry belongs with the NHL, but ESPN isn't, so we get him.
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

Why don't they just take a TV crew from one of the schools in the regional or a crew from a hockey school close to the regional to do the broadcast? If you have a regional in St. Paul, Minnesota's TV team (formerly known as Dough and the Rug) would do the broadcast. If it is in Michigan, Michigan or Michigan State's TV crew would do the broadcast. I'm sure that between the 4 teams in the regional and teams near the regional location, they could find competant broadcasting teams, with actually NCAA knowledge, for every regional.

It seems like they do this some out west, I think Michigan's TV guy was at the Ft. Wayne regional, but is there a reason it couldn't be done at all regionals?
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

bigblue_dl said:
Why don't they just take a TV crew from one of the schools in the regional or a crew from a hockey school close to the regional to do the broadcast? If you have a regional in St. Paul, Minnesota's TV team (formerly known as Dough and the Rug) would do the broadcast. If it is in Michigan, Michigan or Michigan State's TV crew would do the broadcast. I'm sure that between the 4 teams in the regional and teams near the regional location, they could find competant broadcasting teams, with actually NCAA knowledge, for every regional.

It seems like they do this some out west, I think Michigan's TV guy was at the Ft. Wayne regional, but is there a reason it couldn't be done at all regionals?
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Agree that regular college crews could do as well as ESPN's "pros;" indeed, better than most. Dan Parkhurst did the play by play for the Worcester regional; he's the UNH radio voice and very good. Thus, he actually described much of action so you knew names of who had the puck, etc; something hard to pick up on TV, especially if one doesn't know the other team. If anything, perhaps because he became aware of being on TV, he could have described more. Still, he seemed to know all the non-BC players and much about them, even though UNH played only BC during the year. Pros do that.

Do the networks train their color guys to say "great" or "nice job"? Even color announcers should be able to use specific adjectives, and those plus "perfect," "phenomenonal," and their verbosity of the mundane are vague, ambiguous, and, as you can surely see, IMO, maddening.

Even during the Miami-Michigan 3rd period and overtime, I often muted the sound; the color-guy detracted rather than added. The announcer was OK; he was sincerely excited and described thngs OK. But the color-guy could only talk about the winner going to the F4. He didn't mention the shots on goal domination until near the end of the 1st OT. Just one example; sure s college crew pro would have captured the moment much better.

Please don't tell me Sean Whats-his-face is a regular college color guy. If so, my sympathies. And Jim Paradise? Who hired him?
 
Re: The official I love or hate Barry Melrose..

Barry Melrose said that UNH is the best skating team in college hockey, post hoc ergo propter hoc he must be incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable.
 
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