The NBC Bias

            Hey guys, who’s ready for the game tonight? I hope you brought your earplugs, because if you thought the last three Penguins vs. Bruins games were bad this one is almost guaranteed to be the worst. With the Penguins near elimination and the Bruins ready to pull out their brooms, poor old Doc Emrick and his possibly more hated on-ice partner, Pierre McGuire, are going to be breaking out the tissues while they preach how wrong it is the Penguins are losing and they still have a chance even though they’re now down 3-0 in the series. And I almost feel sorry for them, what with their home team doing so badly in the Eastern Conference Finals…oh wait…that’s not their home team now, is it? I think someone forgot they work for NBC and are supposed to be as objective as possible. This NBC bias, as I like to call it, has gotten completely out of hand this series and has my finger hovering over the “mute” button, which is unacceptable if the NHL wants to expand their audience.

            Now, I might not have a problem with this unreal bias if, like I said, they were the home team announcers. With home announcers, you expect bias, and while sometimes it might be out of hand – practically praising one or two players, calling completely ridiculous things on the away team, and defending their players no matter how cheap that shot might have been – again, it’s expected. A home announcer doesn’t mean they’re the best, because they have their flaws too, but with them you expect a biased opinion. They home announcer is going to stick by their team no matter what, and are most likely going to have two completely different tones when announcing a goal depending on which team scored.

            What’s wrong with NBC doing this? They’re NBC – they are a national broadcaster and should not have a home bias. With an NBC announcer, you should be able to tell if there was a goal even if you are in another room and not fully tuned in. How many Boston goals were clear in Game 2? If you weren’t fully tuned in because you were playing Tiddlywinks because it wasn’t much of a close hockey game after it was 4-1, you probably didn’t catch that the slaughter got even worse after the 5^th and 6^th Boston goals. Honestly, even I was sitting there, paying full attention to the Bruins bloodbath mauling, and I couldn’t tell if they were goals or not, because frankly you can’t see the goal-light, there’s no horn, and Emrick in no way made it clear that that was indeed a goal. I had to wait another 10 seconds, which is basically an eternity in hockey, until the scoreboard changed and I knew that it was indeed a good goal…well not good for the Penguins, but you know what I mean. And while it was virtually unknown that the Bruins scored a 5^th and a 6^th goal, everyone within two mile radius of the TV knew exactly when the Penguins scored their one and only goal with Emrick’s biased cheering.

            I know I’m ranting and raving like Don Cherry, but I think even with him we might know who scored and when…it might be accompanied by a ten minute dialog about something completely irrelevant, but you’d probably still know who scored. With Doc Emrick, you might know the first goal, maybe the second by one team, but if it’s not his pick, then you won’t really know who scored and when unless you look at the scoreboard. And while everyone’s going to be biased to some extent naturally, it’s NBC’s job to keep this as objective as possible, which just isn’t happening right now. Perhaps the saddest thing though, is that the passion in Emrick’s voice would be incredible if he maintained an objective point of view, or if he was a home announcer, but he’s not doing either. Emrick might be the prime example here, but he’s not the only one; multiple NBC announcers and even short video skits tend to lean more towards one team winning or scoring over the other – maybe a full two minutes mentioning the streak of one team, while not even thirty seconds mentioning maybe a single player from the opposing team. This NBC bias has gotten to ridiculous levels and needs to stop before it eventually pisses off virtually every hockey fan and prevents an expanded audience. If an announcer cannot stay objective, then they shouldn’t be the voice of national commentary.