Barry Melrose back at ESPN

Didn't see this unless someone sneaked it in, but ESPN announced tonight Melrose is coming back to the network for the five minutes of highlights the NHL gets on SportsCenter. (More on some nights, yes, but you know what I mean.)

Welcome back, Barry. Ya never should have left.

 

Only on the NHL Thread, nowhere major.

 

Matthew Barnaby has no idea why he just called Jeff Stone.

 

That guy ...

 

So it's half a d_b. OK, I'll smack myself on one cheek.

 

Melrose did more to elevate the league's profile on the SportsCenter segments than the league itself does elsewhere. Now, if they could just shitcan Versus.

 

This all was an elaborate ploy to make ESPN hire an additional hockey analyst. It worked very nicely, thank you.

 

You know what is pretty cool? Yahoo and Versus streaming a couple of games a night online through Sunday. Not sure if they're updating their schedule week-by-week on that, because there's nothing up for next week's schedule.

I think it normally runs Wednesday-Sunday, to try and get people to tune in to Versus' games on Monday and Tuesday. Minnesota-Vancouver at 8, then Los Angeles-Edmonton at 10:30 tonight.

I did hear Al Strachan say on Hot Stove a couple of weeks ago that ESPN was negotiating with the NHL to get games back on there, maybe starting next season.

 

You can get several games a night on hockeywebcasts.com.

 

Hockey gets five minutes on SportsCenter? That's about 4 minutes and 50 seconds more than it deserves. ;D

I think they should just run NHL, MLS and WNBA scores over the credits as they replay Berman's latest golf highlights. ;D

 

Berman's name mentioned in the same post as the word hockey gives me scary memories of when ABC sent him to help cover the Stanley Cup finals. Ugh.

 

"And another save by Patrick Roy Rogers!!!!"