So about the Red Wings announcing team:

1. Ken Daniels is a fine play-by-play man. When working Red Wings games he’s no more a homer than any other team’s play-by-play announcer, and I think his homerism comes through more in tone than substance, which isn’t as bad as most. He’s also getting a lot more non-Red Wings work, which reflects on his professionalism. He’s not just a “Red Wings” announcer.

2. Larry Murphy is terrible. I mean, absolutely terrible. Sure, he’s a Hall of Famer and important in Wings’ history and all, but I cringe whenever he speaks. He seems like a nice guy, will occasionally impart some insight, and is sincere and all, but that’s not enough to be a member of this franchise’s top announcing team.

3. Mickey Redmond is wonderful. I’m not sure how PC this is but Mickey has this fuck-it attitude that you sometimes see from cancer survivors. He isn’t afraid to criticize whatever he thinks needs criticizing. Yes, he will criticize the reffing, but he blasts the refs whether they blow a call against the Wings or blow a call against the opponents. He’ll call out a questionable play if it’s by an opponent but also if it’s by a Wing. He’ll rail against the League, against composite sticks, against a coaching decision or a blown defensive assignment or a bad line change that leads to a goal. He’ll also praise an opponent’s great play as much as a Wings’s great play. He’ll stick up for the refs if he thinks they made the best call they could given the circumstances, and he is quick to give the benefit of the doubt in situations where some, if not most, other announcers would condemn.

However…

If the upside to Redmond’s being a cancer survivor is that we here in Detroit get him unfettered, the downside is that he doesn’t travel to away games, and therefore other markets don’t experience him in his full glorious Mickeyness, and instead get Larry Murphy as Ken Daniels’s color man. This is really too bad, and you can see how the rest of the country can look at the Red Wings announcing team as being, well, terrible.