Sunday, January 21, 2024

Responding to Jim Rich’s Rant, the Students Weren’t the Problem

This past weekend, the University of North Dakota hockey team traveled to St. Cloud, Minnesota, to take on the St. Cloud State in a critical NCHC matchup. It was a fantastic weekend of hockey. The games were available on Midco Sports Net via Fox 9+ and NCHC.TV. 

For the most part, the video feed was pretty good; during the two broadcasts, there were a couple of kerfuffles. In the first period of Friday's game, the person running the camera missed Garrett Pyke's goal. Only after a replay were we able to watch the goal. The people doing the graphics also messed up a few of the UND players' schools by putting NDSU instead of UND. That's a big mistake, even for a student on the broadcast team.  

Let's take a look at the men in the announcer's booth who had a tough weekend. Play-by-play announcer Jim Rich couldn't pronounce at least three of UND's players. Rich regularly screwed up Jake Livanavage, Carson Albrecht, and Riese Gaber. Rich is a veteran announcer and should be able to read a pronunciation guide from the game notes. His color guy, Geno Parrish, could pronounce all of the UND players' names. Try it; it's not complicated. I took this from the pronunciation guide from the UND hockey notes: LIVE-an-AH-vidge, gay-burr, ALL-breckt. 

Perusing X during the games, UND fans pointed out the broadcast's shortcomings all weekend. We're spoiled with who we have producing UND sports. It's no contest; they're the best in the business and have set the bar very high. 

During one of the breaks in the first period, SCSU play-by-play announcer Jim Rich started a rant. 

"We have Midco Sports Net joining us again tonight, along with Fox Nine Plus," Rich said. "We'd like to remind all the viewers that this is a student production. All these kids are learning on the fly, just like the players. They make mistakes once in a while, but they all want to get to the next level. These guys want to get to the NHL. These kids are behind the camera and running graphics, TD, you name it. These guys are all going to be pros as well in this business." 

His Color guy, Geno Parrish, replied. 

"And they have they've done that," Parrish said. "I know Mark Parrish (NHL Analyst) and Kristen Kroll are there. A Katie Storm may also work in the National Hockey League and the NBA." 

Rich replied.

"Exactly," Rich replied. They may be a little green here, but they turn out to be dynamic just because this program does such a wonderful job." 

Look, there's no question that St. Cloud State puts out some great media people. Midco Sports has Taylor Budge, who reports for UND sports on Midco. She's a graduate of SCSU. Also, for the most part, the students weren't the problem this weekend despite a few minor mistakes that were cleaned up on Saturday night. During the Saturday night broadcast, no NDSU hockey players played for UND. The problem was the veteran TV guy in the announcer's booth. 

Finally, Jordan Schmaltz was not a member of the famed CBS Line. His brother Nick was. 
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