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NHL Network question

F

FreddyE1977

Guest
It appears to me that the NHL Network has pretty much separated itself into a US and a Canadian
network. Here in the States we no longer get program updates "for Canadian Viewers" and most of
the anchors no longer sound distinctly Canadian.

Does anyone know if the studio shows are still being produced in Toronto? When airing Arena Cam remotes
the host's box says "Toronto", but I was under the impression that people like Kathryn Tappen and Barry Melrose
were based in New York? I know they recently hired Steve Mears who was on the Pittsburgh Penguins radio team
and he has told people locally that he was moving to New York.
 
Currently Barry Melrose lives in Glens Falls, NY, about an hour north of Albany, and works most often from ESPN main studios in the Hartford, CT area. He may be feeding his NHL Network appearances either from there, or from NYC.
 
Bob1370 said:
Currently Barry Melrose lives in Glens Falls, NY, about an hour north of Albany, and works most often from ESPN main studios in the Hartford, CT area. He may be feeding his NHL Network appearances either from there, or from NYC.
Click to expand...

When he appears he is generally standing alongside or seated at a desk next to Kathryn Tappen.
Which lends credence to my theory that the US studio shows are done in the New York area
despite the undertitles saying "Toronto".
 
I'm not sure what makes you think its not in Toronto. Two of the new anchors are from Toronto. Plus Dreger and Mckenzie make regular appearances in the studio. Melrose has only been in the studio a handful of times this year. The bulk of the time he's doing a webcam segment. The NHL Live show is done in NYC in a studio at the NHL Store. NHL Tonight and OTF uses a studio in Toronto that CTV once used.
 
For sure in all prior years the studio shows were coming from Toronto. This year they are in a new
studio and have dropped all references to programming for the Canadian channel. Plus as I had mentioned
they just hired Steve Mears, a Pittsburgh native, as a studio host. And he has told people here he is moving
to New York.

I suppose Mears, Tappen and Melrose could be commuting back and forth from Toronto to NY but that
seems needlessly cumbersome. (how easy is it for American anchors to get work permits to host a show
from Canada anyhow? And why would they do that if the show is for an American audience?)
 
You have your shows confused. Mears doesn't host OTF or Tonight. He's the new permanent host for NHL Live so they no longer have to rely on a rotating group of MSG Network hosts. Placey and Pidto will still be on, but not nearly as much. He moved to NYC because that's where the show is done. That's the only NHLN show not done in Toronto and its been that way since the beginning.

Tappen has never been based out of NYC as she's never hosted NHL Live. She formerly worked in Boston for NESN and she still commutes from Boston although she spends most of her time in Toronto for obvious reasons. The other Toronto based hosts are Mark Roe and Glenn Schiiler. Both are Canadian as Schiiler formerly worked for The score while Roe worked for TSN and at a CTV affiliate.

Kevin Weekes who is the main analyst lives in Toronto and as I mentioned, McKenzie, Dreger and Craig Button show up constantly and that's when they are also doing work for TSN on the exact same day. They certainly aren't going to NY and Toronto on the same day! I'm not sure why you keep bringing up Melrose. Looking at the506, he's only been in studio a couple of times all season except for the season preview shows. Virtually every segment he does is via webcam.

As far as work visas go, its not that difficult. Its no different than what players get. I know there's been cases where announcers missed games because their work visas were delayed but that's very rare.

And just to finish off, they aren't in a new studio. That's the same Toronto studio just with a new set. NHLN moved there in 2010 which is when their shows went full HD. Down the road, they will have a new studio in Stamford at NBC's new complex. Whether that becomes the main studio is yet to be seen. NHL Tonight and OTF are still aired in Canada. Same exact shows as what the US sees. The reason NHLN leans so U.S. heavy is because there's so many places to go for hockey news in Canada and NHLN is a "premium" cable channel there. Very few people have it.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHL_on_the_Fly David Amber/Brian Duff are also host of it and theirs also Mike Johnson,Kelly Case and so on. Dan Pollard and Don Lagrecie aren't with NHL Network anymore.
Their should be a Canada NHL Network only shows Canada versions and also one in the USA in New York that only shows US versions with it's own Insiders.
Barry Melrose is almost on every night on Sportscenter in the Levy Lounge. ESPN doesn't have an Insider for Hockey anymore because EJ isn't one anymore
 
mgsports said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHL_on_the_Fly David Amber/Brian Duff are also host of it and theirs also Mike Johnson,Kelly Case and so on. Dan Pollard and Don Lagrecie aren't with NHL Network anymore.
Their should be a Canada NHL Network only shows Canada versions and also one in the USA in New York that only shows US versions with it's own Insiders.
Barry Melrose is almost on every night on Sportscenter in the Levy Lounge. ESPN doesn't have an Insider for Hockey anymore because EJ isn't one anymore
Click to expand...

That's outdated. Duff left to join the Sabres as host on MSG full time. Amber isn't there anymore either. Roe and Schiiler replaced them.

The replacement for EJ was Craig Custance. They also have Pierre Lebrun, who's one of the top insiders in the game. Its just that Custance and Lebrun never do any TV, at least on ESPN, but then again, neither did EJ very much. Ej's main job was with ESPN magazine and ESPN.com and that's what Custance does too.
 
So does Jason Stark/Mark Stein but they get on the air.
Who's going to be doing the draft for NHL Network know that Duff is gone?
Maybe in next TV Contract ESPN gets back in so Gary Thonre,Stve Levy can call Games again and John B. do NHL Tonight.
 
I sort of got the feeling Barry Melrose was on the outs with ESPN after
his clownish, sarcastic, mail-it-in job of doing color on a couple of KHL games.
 
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