ROOT Sports Hockey Telecasts Have Become Must-Listen
The Seattle Kraken can only hope to reach mid-season form as quickly as their TV broadcasters.
Play-by-play voice John Forslund and analyst Eddie Olczyk have spiced up Kraken ROOT Sports telecasts with often hilarious banter. Sometimes it even relates to the game they're calling, like these gems from Seattle's Oct. 12 game in Nashville.
JF: "Parssinen's 'Fancy Dan' pass cut off by Borgen."
EO: "Why is it 'Fancy Dan?' Why isn't it 'Fancy John?'"
JF: "It will never be 'Fancy Ed,' I'll tell you that. Maybe 'Mr. Ed.'"
(Olczyk, on Nashville's 15 1st period shots)
EO: "Johnny, three times 15 is 45. That's a lot of rubber at the net."
JF: "That's good."
EO: "You mean the math?"
JF: "Everything about you."
The third member of the booth, J.T. Brown, excels at the thankless job of explaining replays while trying to remain neutral. More transcribed examples are forthcoming.
First, a necessary pre-emptive message for the sourpuss contingent. Whenever sportscasters stray even the width of a stick blade from what's happening on the playing surface, plaintive wails emerge from underneath wet blankets: "Stick to calling the game!"
Look. No matter how fervent a hockey viewer may be, 82 games of icings and pucks in netting and equipment repairs can cause interest to wane. (The same even goes for those privileged to wear the TV headsets.) Sports is entertainment. If "Johnny" and "Edzo" and "JT" can enliven a February midweek blowout in Winnipeg, they deserve nothing but our gratitude.
There are caveats. If those who attempt on-the-fly ad-libs aren't good at it, the shtick quickly becomes tiresome. As you'll read below, no problems there.
Forslund has been broadcasting NHL games since 1995, many at the network level. Some of those were with Olczyk, who's currently employed by TNT as well as ROOT Sports. Following a 16-year NHL career, he spent 16 more doing Chicago Blackhawks TV.
Forslund and Olczyk make it clear their chirping is all in good fun. Crucially, they never let their banter obscure significant events occurring on the ice. And Brown, a seven-year NHL veteran, scores as the calming presence alongside his impish partners.
Enough setup. Let's get to the hockey version of a Friars Roast, from the ROOT Sports telecast of the Oct. 12 Kraken-Predators game.
JF: (About Vince Dunn) "I won't say he wasn't 'Dunn.'"
EO: "You are a wordsmith. There are many words."
JF: "Okay, 'Hemmy.'" (Ernest Hemingway reference!)
EO: "I'm looking for a pitchfork."
JF: "I've got one now. And you will feel the wrath on the way to St. Louis (site of Seattle's next game)."
EO: "I gotta say, you're on top of it tonight."
JF: "I'm so glad you're back."
EO: "That's not very sincere."
JF: "You don't know how happy I am to see you."
EO: "It's a good thing JT's playing center tonight. He's between us."
JTB: "I better put the (officials) stripes on."
(Forslund compliments Brown's home state of Minnesota)
JTB: "'Minnesota Nice.'"
EO: "What about Illinois?" (Olcyzk's home state)
JF: "Nice place. People are nice... most of them."
(Forslund struggles through a promo)
EO: "Should bring you on camera when you read those promos. It's vintage."
JF: "New glasses."
JTB: "They look good, by the way."
JF: "Every day is a prize working with you, JT."
JF: (To Olcyzk) "By the way, I've seen you with two or three pairs of glasses on the old Telestrator over there."
EO: "Lookit. I need these pair of glasses to find those other ones sometimes."
JF & JTB: (Laughter)
In what the kids would call a "meta" moment, a back-and-forth during the Oct. 26 Kraken-Hurricanes telecast morphed into a discussion of how viewers are noticing the back-and-forth.
(Forslund, unable to hear an Olczyk comment)
JF: "What's that?"
EO: "Is my mic turned off?"
JF: "Our producer Ryan Schaber was telling me (something), simultaneous with your brilliant comment. So what was it?"
EO: "I didn't realize that everyone heard Ryan over the air."
JF: "No. But you're questioning my listening skills, which are pretty good, usually."
JF: "JT, do you think I'm a good listener?"
EO: (Interrupting) "No, you're not. I talked to your wife Natalie. She agrees with me."
JF: "Oh, you're going to play that card again."
EO: "It's not a card, it's the facts."
JTB: "I'm staying out of it."
EO: "I was acknowledging the Emmy Award-winning studio. That's what I said (originally)."
EO: "I'm sorry to interrupt your conversation off the air."
JF: "My apologies to everyone involved, including the fans who had to go through all of this."
EO: "They love it. I'm on the world wide web and they love it."
JF: "It's good, because we love them."
