Cherry, Healy, McGuire, and Milbury

Ignorance from hockey commentators isn’t a new phenomenon, but with the advent of social media, hockey fans now have a medium to express their dislike for talking heads. It’s become quite apparent to me over the past few seasons, that there are certain broadcasters who seem to be universally disliked. Some go out of their way to be controversial, while others are just naturally condescending and contrarian. Either way, if you search for any of the names above on Twitter, you’ll likely be greeted with a deluge of negative comments. Don Cherry and Glenn Healy of CBC have this space covered in Canada, while Mike Milbury and Pierre Mcguire of NBC/VS handle the role in the United States.

The very fact that most people hate these commentators, seems to be how they are still employed. It’s like the quote from Howard Stern’s Private Parts,

Pig Vomit: But… if they hate him, why do they listen?
Researcher: Most common answer? “I want to see what he’ll say next.

…and while this may be true for the audience as a whole, it doesn’t show respect for that audience with a quality product. For that reason we have created the above Horrible Hockey Commentator Mt. Rushmore. Unfortunately for the folks pictured above, they’ll probably see it as some type of honor.

The 2011-12 hockey season is merely days old, yet we can already find examples to cite for why these folks have made our Mt. Rushmore :

• Mike Milbury on NHL suspensions: ‘a lot of pink hats out there’
• Don Cherry rips ‘turncoats’ in NHL fighting debate
• Mike Milbury is pissed about suspensions, yells about it
• Chris Nilan, Stu Grimson respond to Don Cherry’s comments