The NHL Finally Gets It, Will Be Broadcasting Their Own Version Of "RedZone" On ESPN The Night That All 32 Teams Play
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If there's one thing that has been driving hockey fans insane for the past few years now, it's the fact that the NHL has seemingly never even considered staggering start times of games throughout the league. They'll have a Saturday slate of games with 30 teams playing, and they'll end up scheduling 1 game at 6pm, 13 of those games at 7pm, and another at 11pm.
But this year they're finally starting to listen to the fans a little bit. And on Tuesday, October 24, we'll see all 32 teams in the league play on the same day. And each game is spread out 15-30 minutes apart starting from 6pm to 11pm.
As soon as one game is about to go into intermission, the next just started. It's glorious. It's the most hockey that fans have ever been able to watch. That's 7 hours of non-stop action. The only thing that would make it better is if we got 7 hours of commercial free hockey.
And as much as it pains me to give them credit, it looks like ESPN will be doing exactly that. RedZone for hockey. NHL Frozen Frenzy. I think we could workshop the name a little bit, but it's also not terrible.
Either way, it'll be awesome to see how this looks. It'll either be incredible or horrific, and I don't really see a way where it ends up in the middle. Hockey is so fast-paced and back-and-forth, so it doesn't really lend itself to this style of broadcasting the same way that football does. There aren't any specific moments like a 1st & goal from the 7 where you know to key into a game. Obviously there's the start of a powerplay or an overtime, but that's about it. So I'm interested if they'll just leave every game up on on octobox, or if they'll actually go from game to game like RedZone.
At the very least, we should be able to see every goal and every fight of the night. Make that happen and we're in business here. Also we need to get the countdown clock heading into the first puck drop with the the NHL on ESPN theme music playing in the back for at least 10 minutes.