Sportsnet has officially announced their broadcast team for the 2023-24 season’s Canucks games.
As expected, John Shorthouse will be back as the play-by-play announce with Dan Murphy returning as host. Ray Ferraro and Dave Tomlinson are officially replacing John Garrett in the analyst (colour commentator) role.
Garrett announced late last season that 2022-23 would be his final in the role of analyst on Canucks broadcasts. “Cheech” has been calling Canucks games for two decades.
As for the broadcast team this season, Ray Ferraro is widely regarded as one of the best in the business behind a mic, so his addition is certainly a welcome one. Similarly, Dave Tomlinson was well-regarded while serving as the colour commentator on Canucks games alongside John Shorthouse while both were on radio with TSN 1040, taking over the colour analyst position from Tom Larscheid in 2010. Tomlinson held the job until 2017, when 1040 lost the Canucks’ radio broadcast rights to Sportsnet 650.
More recently, Tomlinson headed down to Seattle to join the Kraken’s radio broadcast team when the team entered the NHL in 2021. In July, Tomlinson announced that he would be heading back home to Canada for a “new broadcasting opportunity with the NHL in Canada.”
As many put together, the job with Sportsnet calling Canucks games turned out to be that job.
Numerous reports also connected Ray Ferraro the job, although it was unclear how it will look this season. According to a report from Daily Hive back in May, Ferraro has one year remaining on his current contract with ESPN, which would likely limit him to about 25 Canucks games this season. The report adds that “if all goes according to plan, Ferraro could then join the Canucks broadcasts on Sportsnet full time during the 2024-25 season, after his contract with ESPN expires.”
This seems accurate, as in their release, Sportsnet mentioned Tomlinson as the main analyst with Ferraro contributing to “select games.”
“The debut of Sportsnet’s new regional broadcast team: Announcer John Shorthouse with the play-by-play call, alongside new game analyst Dave Tomlinson and host Dan Murphy. Former NHLer Ray Ferraro will also join the Sportsnet broadcast team as game analyst on select regional Canucks games throughout the season,” the statement from Sportsnet reads.
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