ESPN Finally Gives A Shit About Hockey Again?! NHL on ESPN is BACK!

Holy shit, it’s happening! The NHL on ESPN is BACK BABY! We’ve blogged before about how ESPN hates the Wild, but that’s in the past, now! Greg Wyshnski was hopping on the bandwagon even before the news broke, so maybe there’s some hope for us after all.

With this huge news, there’s a lot to be excited about. Obviously this will help grow the game, and it will probably increase the salary cap pretty dramatically. But the most important consequence of ESPN getting back into the NHL could be the return of one of the greatest sports themes ever.

If you’re older than 20 and listen to that, it’s physically impossible to not have literal chills go down your spine! The details about the ESPN/NHL partnership are pretty sparse. It appears that it will run from 2022-2028 and feature some sort of streaming component. ESPN+ already broadcasts NHL games each week, so I imagine that will become more prominent. There’s definitely a lot of questions from the get-go, though.

Will we see Stephen A. Smith start yelling about hockey? I know at least one person would debate it with him. Will ABC get some games? Will we finally see highlights on SC Top Ten? Will this bring about the return of the ESPN on Ice podcast? There’s a lot of very exciting possibilities about all of this. But there’s one specific question that appears to be on a lot of people’s minds…

Will ESPN bring back Gary Thorne to call NHL games??

Within half an hour of the news breaking about the NHL on ESPN returning, Gary Thorne was the #6 trending topic on Twitter.

If you’ve never heard Gary Thorne call an NHL game, you’re missing out. With Doc Emrick being retired, I can truly think of nobody I would want to hear call hockey more than Gary Thorne.

There’s a lot to be excited about, and obviously we don’t know all of the details yet. But for now, we can safely say, it appears ESPN finally gives a shit about hockey again. And that’s something we can all be happy about.