Sports

Hockey Night Punjabi frozen out of NHL playoffs despite being hockey's greatest broadcast crew

by Mike Usinger on May 30th, 2018 at 5:00 PM
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      As great as the first game of the Stanley Cup Final between the Washington Capitals and Vegas Golden Knights was on Monday night, it’s left us with some embittered questions.

      There’s no point listing all of them (most related to the ongoing, soul-destroying futility of the Vancouver Canucks) here; that’s what the weekly visit to the therapist is for.

      So let’s just cut right to the top of the list.

      Where has the best Canadian broadcasting team in hockey been during this year’s playoffs?

      And by best, we don’t mean play-by-play guy Dave Randorf and colour commentor Louie DeBrusk, even though their brilliant calls of the Las Vegas-Los Angeles Kings series were every bit as great as a Bob Cole-Harry Neale highlight reel.

      No, by best, we’re talking the team famous for this:

      And this:

      And this (which someone has thoughtfully translated into English for those whose Punjabi is as limited as mine):

      For anyone who’s long wondered why the legendary Bob Cole (or Dave Randorf) isn’t calling the Stanley Cup Final every year, Hockey Night Punjabi has become the number-one default broadcast.

      Like all the greats (Cole, Jim Robson, Foster Hewitt, Mike Emrick), Hockey Night Punjabi play-by-play guy Harnarayan Singh doesn’t call a game, he puts you right in the middle of it. There’s a reason that Mario Lemieux knows him not only by sight, but by name.

      If you’ve been paying attention this entire NHL playoffs, you might have noticed that the Hockey Night Punjabi crew—which includes the equally excitable Harpreet Pandher handling colour—has been largely absent from the airwaves.

      Where in recent years they’ve called at least one series per round and the final, this year they’ve been relegated to nothing but games on Saturdays.

      Hockey Night Punjabi has clearly found an audience, and not just with the Punjabi community. The broadcast team, which has over 10,000 followers on Twitter, has become an adrenalized go-to for those who find Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson about as exciting as a Nyquiled Perry Como reading from the White Pages.

      Instead, like Bob Cole (who was kicked to the sidelines this year without a single series to call), the crew seems to have become some sort of afterthought to Rogers Media, which owns the NHL broadcast rights in Canada.

      The Straight reached out to Rogers Sportsnet head Scott Moore, as well as to Omni Television (which broadcasts Hockey Night Punjabi).

      The response was crickets on both fronts.

      Not to be paranoid, but I’m pretty sure that Moore’s lack of a response, on an ongoing basis, has something to do with the fact that I’m a “westerner” questioning how things are done in the East.

      As for the the Harnarayan Singh (whose Player's Tribune essay last year was one of the most inspirational things you’ll ever read), he was classy enough to get back to us.

      So if you love Hockey Night in Punjabi and are incredulous it’s not part of the Stanley Cup Final this year, you’re not alone.

      There could be as many as six games left in the Caps-Knights final. Someone start up a Kickstarter, because at the moment they aren’t going to be called by the best broadcast team in Canadian hockey.

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