Rumor: Ray Ferraro to be Named Canucks Colour Commentator (Part-Time)

[Breakers]

Good.
Really good

 

[HairyKneel]

Hansen's English simply isn't good enough for an extremely diverse fanbase.

What about Randip Janda though? He talks like he has a mouthful of sand. Hansen at least as some decent insight.

 

[m9]

What about Randip Janda though? He talks like he has a mouthful of sand. Hansen at least as some decent insight.

Janda speaks absolutely fine English.

And yeah, I like what Hansen is saying too. He knows his stuff. But you can't have someone with bad English as the colour commentator for the hockey team in a region where many of the people/fans/potential fans don't even speak great English themselves. It's just bad business and would be a dumb decision.

 

[nucks88]

Janda speaks absolutely fine English.

And yeah, I like what Hansen is saying too. He knows his stuff. But you can't have someone with bad English as the colour commentator for the hockey team in a region where many of the people/fans/potential fans don't even speak great English themselves. It's just bad business and would be a dumb decision.

..."speak English well"...

 

[HairyKneel]

Janda speaks absolutely fine English.

And yeah, I like what Hansen is saying too. He knows his stuff. But you can't have someone with bad English as the colour commentator for the hockey team in a region where many of the people/fans/potential fans don't even speak great English themselves. It's just bad business and would be a dumb decision.

I didn’t say Janda spoke poor English. I said he sounds like he has a mouthful of sand. That and he has no background in the game. He would be a minority hire. Patch it together for a year until Ray’s contract is up. Give Garret a handful of games. Apparently Dave Thomlinsen has been contacted. I think he does radio for Seattle? He maybe interested in helping out? I’m not a Higgs but he’s far better than Janda. Corey Hirsch was terrible but he was better than Janda.

 

[Nucker101]

I didn’t say Janda spoke poor English. I said he sounds like he has a mouthful of sand. That and he has no background in the game. He would be a minority hire. Patch it together for a year until Ray’s contract is up. Give Garret a handful of games. Apparently Dave Thomlinsen has been contacted. I think he does radio for Seattle? He maybe interested in helping out? I’m not a Higgs but he’s far better than Janda. Corey Hirsch was terrible but he was better than Janda.

I’ve barely listened to radio but Hirsch was worse than anyone I’ve heard on tv or radio.

Seems like a nice guy but he’s just not built for that role. He made Shorty and the viewers uncomfortable, that’s worse than a boring monotone guy who you just tune out.

 

[m9]

I didn’t say Janda spoke poor English. I said he sounds like he has a mouthful of sand. That and he has no background in the game. He would be a minority hire. Patch it together for a year until Ray’s contract is up. Give Garret a handful of games. Apparently Dave Thomlinsen has been contacted. I think he does radio for Seattle? He maybe interested in helping out? I’m not a Higgs but he’s far better than Janda. Corey Hirsch was terrible but he was better than Janda.

I haven't listened to more than a couple Canucks games with Janda but I always thought he spoke fine on the afternoon show. I never found him an interesting personality though, so if he wasn't great for the radio games I believe you.

I thought Tomlinson was fine. Hirsch was terrible.

 

[F A N]

Janda speaks absolutely fine English.

And yeah, I like what Hansen is saying too. He knows his stuff. But you can't have someone with bad English as the colour commentator for the hockey team in a region where many of the people/fans/potential fans don't even speak great English themselves. It's just bad business and would be a dumb decision.

I’m confused. Are you saying Jannik Hansen speaks English badly/poorly?

 

[Vector]

Hansen sounds like every Danish person I’ve ever met. They all have that strange high-pitched voice.

 

[m9]

I’m confused. Are you saying Jannik Hansen speaks English badly/poorly?

You can call or that or just say that he just has a heavy accent. Either way, I don't think he speaks it well enough to be a colour commentator here when speaking clear English is like half the job.

 

[Vector]

You can call or that or just say that he just has a heavy accent. Either way, I don't think he speaks it well enough to be a colour commentator here when speaking clear English is like half the job.

He actually speaks perfect English. Better than the majority of native English speakers. Danes just have such a strange accent and high pitched voices.

I do agree that he’s probably not a good fit for Play-By-Play. Would be excellent on a panel show like Bieksa, however.

 

[Lindgren]

He actually speaks perfect English. Better than the majority of native English speakers. Danes just have such a strange accent and high pitched voices.

I do agree that he’s probably not a good fit for Play-By-Play. Would be excellent on a panel show like Bieksa, however.

Certain errors mark someone as a non-native speaker of a language. To some listeners, that means they don't speak the language well, when in fact, as you say, they're making fewer serious errors than many native speakers.

Hansen certainly speaks better English than Jim Benning. So does Patrik Alvin. They both speak better English than Don Cherry. I also don't see Hansen as a colour guy, but it's not because of his English.

 

[m9]

You can term it however you want, my only point is that some people will have trouble understanding Hansen and because of that Sportsnet wouldn't hire him (or someone else with the same issue) for that role.

 

[Lindgren]

You can term it however you want, my only point is that some people will have trouble understanding Hansen and because of that Sportsnet wouldn't hire him (or someone else with the same issue) for that role.

I can't imagine anyone having trouble understanding Hansen but not having trouble understanding Don Cherry. Or, for that matter, Tom Larscheid.

Hansen is more likely to speak in short, complete sentences than many of the typical hockey commentators. He doesn't mangle phrases in the way many native speakers do ("I could care less," "sooner than later," "has his pulse on the team", etc.) Those features of the way he speaks are much more important for the listener who is a non-native speaker of English than Hansen's very slight accent.

As an aside, I can still remember way back in the seventies remarking to myself that Thomas Gradin spoke better English than Stan Smyl. (And I'm a big Smyl fan.)

 

[m9]

I can't imagine anyone having trouble understanding Hansen but not having trouble understanding Don Cherry. Or, for that matter, Tom Larscheid.

Fair enough, agree to disagree.

 

[HelloCookie]

I enjoyed watching the world championships games where ferraro was commenting (can't remember the play by play fella's name) because it's so so much better than anything the finnish tv has to offer in insight, entertainment and objectivity. I have a soft spot for Ferraro thanks to that and it'd be great to have him doing nucks games.

 

[F A N]

You can call or that or just say that he just has a heavy accent. Either way, I don't think he speaks it well enough to be a colour commentator here when speaking clear English is like half the job.

He actually speaks perfect English. Better than the majority of native English speakers. Danes just have such a strange accent and high pitched voices.

I do agree that he’s probably not a good fit for Play-By-Play. Would be excellent on a panel show like Bieksa, however.

You can term it however you want, my only point is that some people will have trouble understanding Hansen and because of that Sportsnet wouldn't hire him (or someone else with the same issue) for that role.

I'm with Vector. I think Hansen speaks English just fine. He just doesn't have a Canadian accent. I would be silly to not hire him because of his accent. He's obviously a recognizable name, knows the game, and has strong opinions. I would also think that most Canucks fans watching the games like Hansen and once they realize that the person talking is Hansen fans wouldn't care if they can't understand a thing or two of the things he says. Hansen has also made many appearances on the radio and I would think there's a significant number of would be broadcast viewers who have heard Hansen talk and understand him just fine.

If this was soccer and Hansen had a British accent it would be just fine even though there would be people who can't understand the British accent.

Of course if Ferraro is available he is the better candidate. He's a recognizable name, has many years of broadcasting experience with top networks, and he would probably do a better job of bouncing things back and forth with Shorty.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

He actually speaks perfect English. Better than the majority of native English speakers. Danes just have such a strange accent and high pitched voices.

I do agree that he’s probably not a good fit for Play-By-Play. Would be excellent on a panel show like Bieksa, however.

How do finnish accents sound to your guys' ears?

 

[wavaxa2]

How do finnish accents sound to your guys' ears?

The accent was pretty heavy when he said the word "retriever". If I heard that word out of context, I would not have understood it. The rest of the interview was easy to understand for me. I know people make fun of Esa Tikkanen and his "Tikkanese" accent, but I thought his words were quite understandable when I watched interviews with him.

 

[Lindgren]

I enjoyed watching the world championships games where ferraro was commenting (can't remember the play by play fella's name) because it's so so much better than anything the finnish tv has to offer in insight, entertainment and objectivity. I have a soft spot for Ferraro thanks to that and it'd be great to have him doing nucks games.

This comment, along with a @Punchmunhkin post from a while ago about the sad state of Finnish hockey, slightly depresses me. The Finns are the ones who're supposed to have everything figured out these days: education (especially education—best system in the world), equality, life balance, environment. C'mon! We're supposed to be able to count on the Finns! Get the hockey sorted out!

 

[Vector]

How do finnish accents sound to your guys' ears?

Finns just sound like a European accent to me. Nothing overly distinct like the unnerving calmness of Swedish or weirdness of Danish. Which makes sense since it’s a completely unrelated language.

 

[Lindgren]

Finns just sound like a European accent to me. Nothing overly distinct like the unnerving calmness of Swedish or weirdness of Danish. Which makes sense since it’s a completely unrelated language.

Same. It doesn't have quite the grooviness, to my ear, of the southern European accents. (An older English friend of mine can't hear a German accent without getting a feeling of threat or potential violence.)

 

[ChuckNorris4Cup]

Well this sucks, the guy has such an annoying voice, it's annoying enough listening to him when you play NHL video games.

Not questioning his knowledge of the game at all, he knows the game, it's just his voice in general can't stand it.

 

[HairyKneel]

As an aside, I can still remember way back in the seventies remarking to myself that Thomas Gradin spoke better English than Stan Smyl.

No he didn’t.

 

[Nucker101]

Well this sucks, the guy has such an annoying voice, it's annoying enough listening to him when you play NHL video games.

Not questioning his knowledge of the game at all, he knows the game, it's just his voice in general can't stand it.

Is it the lisp