{"id":271696,"date":"2025-10-02T11:04:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T11:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/271696\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T11:04:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T11:04:14","slug":"ben-mcdonald-wont-be-watching-espns-nhl-opening-night-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/271696\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben McDonald won&#8217;t be watching ESPN&#8217;s NHL Opening Night coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NHL signed a seven-year media deal with ESPN\/ABC to bring pro hockey back to the Worldwide Leader in 2021. Suffice it to say, MLB analyst Ben McDonald hasn\u2019t been tuning in very much over that time.<\/p>\n<p>As the 2025 MLB season winds down, it\u2019s almost time for the 2025-26 NHL season to begin. What better opportunity for ESPN to promote its NHL Opening Night offerings than to the sports fans watching the MLB Playoffs currently underway?<\/p>\n<p>McDonald, who was in the booth alongside Kevin Brown and Jessica Mendoza for ESPN on ABC\u2019s coverage of the NL Wild Card Series Game 2 between the San Diego Padres and the Chicago Cubs, wasn\u2019t exactly a good soldier when it came to helping the company get viewers excited about hockey.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cThere is zero chance I\u2019ll be watching, I\u2019m just gonna be honest with you.\u201d \u2013 ABC\/ESPN MLB analyst Ben McDonald with a ringing endorsement of ESPN\u2019s NHL Opening Night coverage. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OaWXf68hsy\">pic.twitter.com\/OaWXf68hsy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/awfulannouncing\/status\/1973493062937800855?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">October 1, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>As the broadcast returned from commercial, Brown launched into a promo for the opening night matchup between the Chicago Blackhawks and two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, as well as two other games as part of their tripleheader. He then turned to McDonald to jokingly get his take on whether or not the Panthers might be able to three-peat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh, if you say so,\u201d said McDonald. \u201cI mean, good luck to them. Are you asking if I\u2019m gonna be watching?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, you\u2019ll be watching, of course, because you work for ESPN, you\u2019ll be watching Friday night,\u201d responded Brown, attempting to keep his broadcasting partner in line.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is zero chance I\u2019ll be watching, I\u2019m just gonna be honest with you,\u201d added McDonald.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere will you be?\u201d asked Brown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will be somewhere, but there\u2019s zero chance I\u2019ll be watching,\u201d said McDonald, driving the nail in all the way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlright, thanks, Ben, we\u2019ll be watching. Thanks for the ratings,\u201d responded Brown as he and Mendoza chuckled.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019d love to be a fly on the wall for the phone call that Ben is about to get from an ESPN executive over this one.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL signed a seven-year media deal with ESPN\/ABC to bring pro hockey back to the Worldwide Leader&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":271697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[141012,141013,141014,141015,293,102260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-271696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ben-mcdonald","9":"tag-jessica-mendoza","10":"tag-kevin-brown","11":"tag-mlb-on-abc","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-nhl-on-espn","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115304245833208844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}