The stats that they come up with are pretty ludicrous sometimes. I did find when I first got into football (not soccer) I would have been lost without the commentary explaining what was going on, but I'm at a point now I could probably get by without the commentary.

There are certain commentators I like (Bob Cole on Hockey Night in Canada is the man), but others I could do without.

For people new to the sport commentary is good (curling is a good example; I have a pretty good idea of what shots are and aren't possible, but someone that doesn't play or is new to the sport would have no idea), if you have experience with the sport you can probably do without it, although it can help to get the adrenaline running (I can't imagine the final goal of the 1972 Summit Series where Paul Henderson scored the winning goal for Canada without the commentator freaking out "HENDERSON!").




Commentary can whip up the excitement, but you need a good commentator to do it. Sometimes I see sports highlights on the news where the local guy is doing commentary and they flip out over a goal and it's the first period of a hockey game; little too early to cram in that much enthusiasm.

Some sports like figure skating I definitely need the commentary; I have no idea how to tell the different jumps apart. For others, I'd be fine without it. It all comes down to the quality of the commentator.

What really gets me is the all day pre-game shows for games like the Superbowl; do we really need to devote that much time to the game beforehand? The pre-game is longer than the actual game!

~Hat~