CUTHBERT A HUGE ADDITION FOR SPORTSNET
The list of hockey people Rogers Sportsnet has let go since becoming the NHL’s national network in Canada is long and troubling. Among those pushed out: Don Cherry, George Stroumboulopoulos,
Nick Kypreos, Glenn Healy, Scott Morrison, Doug MacLean, John Shannon, Daren Millard, Brad May, Neil Smith, Leah Hextall and I’m probably missing a few. And that’s just the on-air people.
The network has forever been searching for the recipe of how to do hockey right — and along the way it’s tripped all over itself.
But Sportsnet made an enormous move on Friday with the hiring of Chris Cuthbert, who left TSN after 15 years of calling hockey and CFL games for the network. For my money, Cuthbert is the best play-by-play man working in Canada, either doing hockey or football. He hated to leave TSN, hated to leave his CFL and Grey Cup work, but wanted to do something he’d never done before: Broadcast a Stanley Cup final. That was on his bucket list.
And he has been promised at least one final in his four-year deal. Not four Stanley Cup finals. At least one, maybe more.
So what now for Cuthbert, who had to get huge money to change networks? Does he become the voice of Hockey Night in Canada, ahead of longtime staple Jim Hughson?
Or do they become co-No. 1 voices? To me, it’s shouldn’t be a 1 and 1a situation. It should be Cuthbert one and Hughson two on my list.
It might make some sense economically and broadcast-wise for Cuthbert to become the Eastern voice of Hockey Night in
Canada and have Hughson as the Western voice. But that doesn’t seem to be the plan right now.
And guess what? Sportsnet isn’t exactly asking for my opinion.