This is what I’m thinking:
Buffalo Sabres play-by-play announcer Dan Dunleavy and analyst Rob Ray will be traveling to the majority of the National Hockey League team’s road games this season for MSG Network telecasts.
That’s the word from Chrisanne Bellas, vice president of media and content for the Sabres.
The Sabres broadcasters didn’t travel to road games during the Covid-19 pandemic. NHL teams had the option last season whether to have their announcers travel to games or do them from their studios.
The only games that Dunleavy and Ray won’t be attend this season will be the West Coast games, confirmed Bellas. They will work those games from the studio.
It makes sense. The evening games on the West Coast typically have the lowest viewership because they can end near or after midnight because of the time difference between the coasts.
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There could be as few at 10 and as many as 18 West Coast games involved.
The plans are subject to change if the pandemic returns to levels that make traveling to games more of a concern.
Many armchair Sabres fans were upset last season when the announcers did the games from a studio here rather than at the road arenas in what was viewed as a cost-saving move.
It meant Dunleavy and Ray could see only what TV viewers could see and not anticipate or react to some plays out of camera view that they might have seen if they were at the games.
The heightened expectations that the year’s team will at least compete for a playoff berth adds to the reasons for the announcers being on site.
MSG will carry 70 regular season games this season, with the other 12 on the NHL’s national media partners: four on cable’s TNT and eight on the streaming services ESPN+/Hulu. None of those games is against West Coast teams.
The Sabres open the season Oct. 13 against Ottawa, in a game that will be carried on MSG.
This is Dunleavy’s first season as the lone TV voice of the Sabres since last April’s retirement of the legendary Rick Jeanneret.
Ian Eagle is the play-by-play announcer, Charles Davis is the analyst and Evan Washburn the sideline reporter for the Bills game with Baltimore at 1 p.m. Sunday on CBS. They are CBS’ No. 2 team. What, you expected CBS’ No. 1 team, Jim Nantz and Tony Romo? They are calling the New England game at Green Bay, which looks less interesting now that Patriots quarterback Mac Jones is injured.
Every time I see or hear a commercial involving Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, I cringe. Don’t the advertisers who hired him realize he has been alleged to have been in a welfare fraud case in Mississippi? Sirius suspended his show Monday. I suspect advertisers might soon abandon him, too.
