The Athletic’s Sean Shapiro and Harman Dayal ranked the NHL’s 32 broadcast teams for a subscriber-only article this morning, utilizing over 5,000 fan responses to a survey for their rankings, and the Wings’ TV broadcasters earned a relatively high rating:
8. Detroit Red Wings
The broadcast: Bally Sports Detroit carries Red Wings game, with Ken Daniels handling play-by-play and Mickey Redmond handling most games as the color analyst.
Local ranking: 7 National: 12 Last season: 23
The results: A big riser in the rankings — jumping from 23rd to eighth is impressive — but it’s even more impressive in doing so on a network, Bally Sports, that took a ton of criticism across the board in all markets.
The chemistry between Daniels and Redmond stands out to both Red Wings fans and national respondents, many of whom also were quick to point out how fun the Detroit broadcast can be, even with a team that hasn’t been very fun to watch lately.
“Mickey Redmond is delightfully zany but also very knowledgeable about hockey and generally very fair in his analysis.”
“Mickey Redmond and Ken Daniels somehow make it fun to tune in and watch the rebuilding Red Wings.”
As with most great local broadcasts, nationally there is a bit of homerism viewed by respondents, which is why the Detroit broadcast ranks higher locally than it does nationally.
The bottom line: A fun, bit homerish broadcast, that does help make up for the lack of a competitive product on the ice.
Continued; [sarcasm] Oh no, homerism, that never happens on other broadcasts! [/sarcasm]
Regarding TV broadcasts: If you have Direct TV you sometimes can get the other teams broadcast on a delayed basis when you are blacked out on live broadcasts. This worked two years ago for the Wings as well if you have their sports package and don’t get Bally Sports Detroit as a Michigan resident. I live outside of Michigan.