If there’s one universal opinion shared among sports fans, it’s a hate for remote broadcasts.
Unfortunately, remote productions are simply a reality of today’s sports broadcasting industry. With the sheer volume of sporting events that networks are putting out there these days, it’s not feasible to have in-person announcers at every single game.
That logic shouldn’t apply to playoff games for a “Big 4” North American sports league, however. And as this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs began on Saturday, TNT was widely panned for not sending announcers to Game 1 of the Winnipeg Jets-St. Louis Blues series in Winnipeg. John Forslund and Jennifer Botterill called the game remotely from TNT’s Atlanta studios.
Fortunately for hockey fans, ESPN is taking a different approach. John Buccigross and Kevin Weekes will be on-site in Winnipeg to call Game 2 for the Worldwide Leader on Monday, per hockey media reporter Braylon Breeze.
After yesterday, I wanted to clarify that ESPN will have on-site commentators in Winnipeg tomorrow — Bucci & Weekes.
In ESPN’s four seasons with the NHL under this deal, they’ve only called one game remotely — Boston–Florida on this year’s Opening Night, due to Hurricane Milton.
— Braylon Breeze (@Braylon_Breeze) April 20, 2025
In four seasons under the current media rights agreement with the league, ESPN has called just one NHL game remotely: an Opening Night game between the Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers this season due to Hurricane Milton.
Per Breeze, ESPN’s broadcast team of Buccigross and Weekes will remain in Canada throughout the week, also calling games during the Toronto Maple Leafs-Ottawa Senators series.
As ESPN’s ‘Canadian Crew’, Bucci and Weekes are set for a busy stretch — calling four games in five days beginning today:
Sunday: TOR–OTT
Monday: WPG–STL
Tuesday: TOR–OTT
Thursday: OTT–TOR— Braylon Breeze (@Braylon_Breeze) April 20, 2025
TNT is not scheduled to return to Winnipeg unless the series reaches a seventh game. The other remaining Winnipeg home games are all scheduled for the ESPN family of networks.
One would have to imagine that, for a hypothetical Game 7, TNT would send on-site announcers.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.