Mistletoe found half of her bed occupied by Alexander’s head so she takes refuge under the table as we’re watching “The Hockey Guy” Shannon Skanes and his wife Yvonne livestreaming their coverage of the NHL’s trade deadline day.
If you have any interest in hockey whatsoever, I highly recommend Shannon’s YouTube channel. His analysis (and clear love) of the game is often way better than the much more expensively produced pundit pits on the national sports networks.
He produces his videos in his house in Abbotsford, British Columbia (about a hour east of Vancouver) and is the Canucks’ very calm long-suffering fan (as compared to Steve Dangle whose loud and animated breakdowns and meltdowns courtesy of being a long-suffering Leafs fan are also must-see videos).
The production values are simple…massive wall of hockey jerseys behind him with some NHL swag (including a picture of Gary Bettman and a Gritty plushie to the side) and a big cat tree that occasionally has cats either sleeping or doing whatever cats tend to do behind an easel with a whiteboard full of NHL team magnets and very neatly written notes on the subject du jour.
Every now and then, you might catch Shannon holding one of their rabbits on camera as he’s giving his take on the hockey and a kitty is snoozing in the background.
Good luck finding anything that cool on Sportsnet or TSN, eh? 😉
He’ll do previews, news of the day/parish notices, and in depth recaps of as many of the day’s games as is humanly possible (where there will sometimes be six or more games on at any given time) where he’s frenetically taking notes and keeping on top of all the action that he’ll share later along with his analysis in the recap video(s).
And that’s just his regularly scheduled content! There are also livestreams as well as videos on player careers, history of the game, statistical trends, you name it.
One of my favourite recurring features is his Power Rankings which seeks to eliminate much of the chaos you tend to find on other Power Rankings. Besides, he’s got this custom-made board that allows him to place all 32 team’s pucks in their appropriate slot and I’ve found that his methodology is generally a lot fairer and closer to the real state of play than those other rankings.
And here’s the beauty part of it…he’s about the fairest and most even-keeled commenter on the game out there. Hands down! So even though he does root for Boston (hisssssssssssss!) and Dallas along with the close-by Vancouver Canucks, he manages to do what Jack Edwards will never be capable of…putting his fan leanings aside to tell the facts, Jack.
If you’re an American fan of the game, give his channel a try and I guarantee you’ll never want the “analysis” from the famous guys in the fancy studios ever again. In fact, between “The Hockey Guy” and Steve Dangle’s Hat-Picks and Dang-Its videos and the Sportsnet highlight packages, I’m finding it harder to justify even keeping the streaming cable package. Were it not for the Canes games being broadcast on Bally’s, I’d probably have dumped that package long ago.
Anywho, whilst the Canes were pretty underwhelming in the last minute trade business, at least the livestream and seeing the battle of wills over Mistletoe’s bed were quite entertaining! 🙂
