Get in your “ESPN doesn’t care about hockey!” jokes now while you can; it appears The Worldwide Leader is reportedly about to get back in the game.
According to a report from TSN’s Rick Westhead, ESPN has secured the broadcasting rights for the World Cup of Hockey, which will be making its return in the fall of 2016.
Breaking – TSN has learned ESPN has won the U.S. broadcast rights for the World Cup of Hockey, beating out NBC and Fox.
— rick westhead (@rwesthead) February 4, 2015
The tournament – which was last played in 2004 – was officially announced during NHL All-Star Weekend late last month and it was confirmed that games will be hosted at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto prior to the start of the 2016 NHL season.
Depending on how much interest the tournament generates and what the quality of product looks like, this could be a big win for ESPN, which has been highly-criticized for its lack of pro hockey coverage since the 2004 lockout. The network, however, has been expanding its coverage of college hockey over the past few years, broadcasting the NCAA Men’s Division I Ice Hockey Championship in its entirety last season.
I’m curious to see who ESPN will hand commentary duties to. One would assume that John Buccigross – the network’s current lead hockey play-by-play commentator – will once again team up with lead hockey analyst Barry Melrose in the booth, but ESPN has also employed the services of Joe Beninati and Darren Eliot, Joe Davis and Billy Jaffe, and Clay Matvick and Sean Ritchlin recently. There’s also the chance that Gary Thorne and Steve Levy, two of the lead play-by-play commentators during ESPN’s National Hockey Night days, could also return to the booth.
Update: It’s official.
ESPN has been awarded the exclusive U.S. media rights to the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. Sportsnet and TVA get the exclusive Canadian rights.
— Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) March 4, 2015
As expected, ESPN gets U.S. World Cup of Hockey rights "with most games to appear on ESPN and ESPN2." Conference call in a bit. #NHL
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) March 4, 2015
[SI]
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