Some Kindly Friday Suggestions for NHL Network

Some random thoughts on a night of the NHL’s flagship station:

1. Better game selections, please.  Nashville-Anaheim doesn’t exactly light my fire on a Thursday night, when Pittsburgh-Los Angeles is on in a similar timeslot.  Predators-Ducks just feels like a letdown, especially when considering Bob Miller & Jim Fox >>>>>> John Ahlers & Brian Hayward.  That said, if you were planning on showing us the FS Pittsburgh’s (Puck the Media’s official Worst Broadcasters Alive) feed, we would’ve skipped the night all together.
2. Something we definitely do like: eschewing lame local network intermission reports for On the Fly.  They showed us pretty extensive highlights of what other games are on at the same time, basically cutting to live look-ins, in addition to the necessary breakdown of the period at hand.  VERSUS would be bright to employ this.
3. That said, ON THE FLY NEEDS TO GET BETTER.  A host and three panelists needs to be the lineup every night.  Weeksie is great, and really getting better as an analyst on the show, but there need to be more voices.  Last Friday with Mark Osbourne and Bill Berg was a surprising example of improvement.  It was two guys not doing fake banter (VERSUS!) but having an honest discussion of the game.  Like what Baseball Tonight was before John Kruk.
4. Also, come on guys, please, we beg you, get the freakin’ show in HD.  We love the new graphics, especially the expanded ones for NHL Live.  It really does manage to make a radio show on TV more interesting.  But get On the Fly in HD… please!

We have another NHL Network story later today at 4, featuring the announcement of a new show that the network is adding.  We also have the net’s featured schedule at 2.  It’s NHL Network Fridays, apparently.