Tuesday, December 22, 2015

My Quick Listening List for Hockey



Got up early, for a change, a few Saturdays ago. Needed to do some things and thought I might put sports radio on for my drive around the greater New York area.

What was on the radio? Giant/Jets predictions, for starters, followed with calls and studio commentary on the Yankees' rotation, the Mets' infield, the Knicks and Rutgers football.

Click. I quickly synced my phone to the car radio to get the hockey conversation flowing.

For those who live in areas where hockey talk is not quickly found on the radio or TV, which is to mean all of the United States, for starters, here are a few standards to go with drive or commute. (Or if you are seated in or near the Lounge, your noonish bourbon and ginger.)

The Hockey PDOCast quickly gets down the the basics of analytics and put them in context of the day's events and actual games. In other words, no wasted time spent hearing about good guys and the assorted garbage basically presented in most American newspapers today. Dimitri Filipovic and Travis Yost are your hosts, and the production value of the podcast is studio quality, which surprisingly a challenge for many podcasts in this day and age. Your view of the game will be challenged and you may even have more than a few disagreements with their conclusions. Regardless, these two turn in a solid shift on the ice.

TSN Hockey Analytics is another show that does a good job of using numbers to explain what you are seeing and also negate some of the garbage that you may be reading in newspapers today. Yost can be heard on this show as well, along with TSN staff members and James Mirtle of The Globe and Mail.

Hockey Central at Noon, or what I often disgustedly call Maple Leafs Central at noon, remains a part of my evening commute during the week. The show, which is a radio simulcast of Rogers Sportsnet's TV show, covers the news of the day and can often take a direct-opposite point of view of the analytics community, but it is a nice pairing with the analytics show. Daren Millard, Nick Kypreos and Doug Maclean compose the panel on three of the days, with John Shannon and Scott Morrison playing the role of the more-informed fill-ins on the day Maclean or Kypreos give their shouting voices a rest. You can also see the show on the NHL Network, but save your eyes and listen to the show, which runs at noon Eastern five days a week, live on your computer. It drops in podcast form around 1:30 to 2 pm Eastern.

Tape II Tape is a weekly podcast from Sportsnet, with Rory Boylen and Ryan Dixon taking a look at the NHL as well as what might be topical that week in Sportsnet Magazine, which is available on your phone or tablet and is a better read than Sports Illustrated or the profoundly unsatisfying ESPN The Magazine.

Sensing a bit of a trend here? Well you are right, Sportsnet and Canada have helped challenge the capacity of my phone and or tablet with media content.

Junior is an podcast that covers the top source of NHL talent, the Canadian Hockey League (the umbrella organization that covers the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and Western Hockey League). Jeff Marek is your host.

The Pipeline Show will cover much of the same territory, but with perhaps a tone much closer to that of a pro scout. In addition to the CHL, the Pipeline show will also have reports on the NCAA, CIS, USHL and the junior-A level Alberta Junior Hockey League, which helps stock NCAA rosters as well as those in the CHL. Over all, this two-hour show, broken up in five or six segments, give you more than you might imagine about scouting the next generation of NHL players. Best of all, the shows run year-round. Guy Flaming, Dean Millard and Taylor Medak are your hosts.

From here, the podcasts dip in production quality from studio level to bedroom-down-the-hallway quality, in some cases. And yet, I still consider them more than worthy of a listen.

USCHO Live is a podcast from the college hockey website, USCHO.com. Your hosts are Jim Connelly and Ed Trefzger, who bring in a number of good guests to compile a solid weekly report on NCAA Division I men's hockey.

Marek vs. Wyshynski is a podcast that shares talent in Jeff Marek of Sportsnet with Greg Wyshynski, the editor of the Puck Daddy blog from Yahoo! Sports. The podcast can be irreverent to the point of slipping into deep analysis of Star Wars, movies based on comic book heros or childish jokes. And yet, they can also follow that up with some of the most challenging thoughts about the game. It is, in a sense, similar to the great discussions you had in college, with these particular sessions covering hockey. (Yes, some of the conversations you had in college were down right insane, but others were so insightful that you probably wish you had recorded them to play today.) Production quality his hit or miss, with some guests' phone calls coming in as good night whispers from your grandparents. In other words, far from perfect, but so am I. That being said, the show is worth a regular listen.

Hockey Prospectus Radio is an extension of the analytics website and the producers of the essential Hockey Prospectus annual guidebooks. Another show with a average to poor sound quality. But the information is top notch.

Hockey Today is ESPN's somewhat regular NHL podcast. The writer Scott Burnside is the ring leader for this podcast, which sounds like it was recorded in his bathroom. Many times, audio from an interview done with a player or coach at an arena is unintelligible. But the thoughts of reporters like Craig Custance, Pierre LeBrun and Sean McIndoe make the effort worth a trip to Burnside's cozy home.

Give a listen if you want to keep in the hockey conversation, or you can go back to the radio for thoughts on whom the Jets or Giants should take in the first round of the next NFL draft, who should bat eighth on the Yankees or why the Knicks need a new (pick a position here). I think you know what Killer sounds the Lounge will have coming through the speakers.

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