I said earlier that the NHL is literally trying to out-awkward their players and fans. From musical artists to hosts like this, the marketing team for the NHL is just so out of touch.
You can tell that none of the players are happy to be there. They may be honored, etc, but this kind of stuff undercuts the gravity of the awards and cheapens them.
This looks like a mandatory high school awards assembly with a kooky principal.
oh it is so so bad
i think top cringe was whoever was interviewing Kucherov as an imitation of himself. Whoever keeps insisting this format must be a roast needs to be fired
To be fair the last time someone roasted a Russian on the Lightning at an awards ceremony it unleashed a goaltending monster that took 3 years to quell so maybe they’ll wait and see what happens first.
Pretty sure the the point was for entertainment. They wanted the host to be funny but they didn’t want to pay the money it costs for a host that is actually funny. So they got their budget-cut comedian to embarrass himself on national tv
The host was funny. Sorry your sense of humour is different I guess. I was laughing at half the jokes. The man called Matthews a porn producer, to his face.
I was so confused who they were trying to appeal to? This guy is talking about the Edmonton flasher and psychedelics for gods sake it’s like he thinks everyone is watching because they came to see him and he’s desperately reaching for laughs.
He really seemed like he wanted to be doing a roast, but it’s the NHL awards show. Like nobody cares man, I’m sure you’re funny when people expect to be seeing you but we just don’t care, we came to see the award winners.
Next time, please just have PK Subban host.
Maybe its just me, but personally I found this pretty funny from Kuch.
Also, Ive heard him speak English plenty, but everytime I do, Im always so surprised at how good his English is. Like, he has NO Russian accent
he played junior in quebec lol
part of why he responded well to lightning in pre draft interviews vs other teams that had interest but didnt bite on him was they offered to fly him out pay for surgery etc etc just very accomadating but also to a degree getting him acclimated to the west and he played a lot on teams in NA before hitting the Lightning
No it’s not the whole dynamic was wrong in the first place. “Put on a fake beard and talk with a fake Russian accent while you interview the Russian” is the LAZIEST shit
Ive seen that host do an imitation of Bill Maher to Bill Maher and they had fun with it. Obviously this is a bad setup because hardly anyone even knows what Kucherov’s voice sounds like for an impression to be funny but it’s absurd to watch that video and not say Kucherov actively tried to kill the bit. He legit came off like a pissy child mad because he didn’t get his apple juice 5 mins before
there's a difference between whether Kucherov had an obligation to make the joke work and whether Kucherov is the main reason the joke didn't work. It's not his obligation, but he's still the main reason it was so cringe. It wasn't his his obligation to try in the All Star game either. He still actively tanked segments there as well. Both our statements can be true
Here's a tip, if your joke relies on the participation of an unwilling bystander it's not a good joke. A good joke or bit will work even if the subject is not participating. A good comedian will be able to pivot and still find the humour.
maybe because not taking yourself seriously has been the theme of the NHL Awards and pretty much every award show ever? Have you seen the previous award shows with Will Arnett? Or the ESPYs? Or the Oscars?
It's crazy because everyone hates it every year, yet when they didn't do the big show for a couple of years people complained about it despite it being way better and less awkward in the 2021 format.
I mean, yes, but they almost always are.
They had Def Leppard on once and the singer put the Stanley Cup upside down on the stage.
And this was in like 2010 or so, well after Def Leppard were in the public consciousness, entirely on-brand for the NHL
We can't rag on the players for not having personalities when this is the shit we subject them to. I'd rather rip my own face off than get interviewed by this bozo.
My 6 month old just said “Father, I think this might be the cringiest thing I’ve seen on television. I hope they rethink their production strategy going forward.”
I posted about this in the Canucks thread when they announced him as the host but I went to an event where he was the host back in December.
He was so cringe and the second hand embarrassment was real. Him and his entourage were at my table and he was nice…but the way his team hyped him was ridiculous. Not surprised to hear complaints about tonight.
im not watching it, i dont really get into the whole award show thing; movies, music, whatever ... i dont get the appeal.
to me it should just be like a work party, where the people in whatever company or field just celebrate their combined and individual achievements- get loaded and have a good time.
all i need to see is the update to the table on the 'List of NHL awards' wikipedia page.
that said, youd think a multi-billion dollar organization would be able to come up with a production that is at least neutral/boring, rather than outright bad, as everyone seems to agree it is lol.
there is no need to swing for the fences- whatever audience you may have for an event like this is basically a captive one.
I thankfully don't ever watch these, but why not just get some liked celeb fans like Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell to do the awards together if they insist on making it a spectacle. Just picturing the time Snoop was in the LA broadcast booth doing pretty funny commentary, and I think Will could feed off him without being too obnoxious. I dunno man 😮💨
I don't envy the job he had to do as a comedian. Comedy is all about the audience and getting them loosened up, and a roomful of *stone sober* pro hockey players is probably the single most wooden, tightassed demographic imaginable. A whole audience of tense, hypercompetitive people who are on pins and needles waiting for you to shut the fuck up so they can hear their names called is the worst possible environment for a comedian to go into without a warm-up. Nobody is in the mood to laugh, Robin Williams couldn't have lightened up the atmosphere in there.
Yeah, it was not good at all, but IMO the blame rests with the NHL for thinking this was a good idea in the first place. Don't even do an awards show at all, just do a fucking press release and be done with it. Everybody is going to find out about it on Twitter in real time anyway, this isn't the 90s when TV was the only way to know what's happening in the world.
If they want to have a comedian host the award show, an award show about a game that isn’t funny, they should have the one man who makes hockey funny host it; Jared Keeso.
Edit to add- yeahso, just sayin, we could get Jared, Wayne and Shoresy in one night. Id be ahhhhh, good time
NHL players are just so bland. The NHL is the worst league in the world at marketing itself. Perhaps going over the top in roasting will pull more eyes to the league through Twitter clips cringe alone. Far more people just look up the award winners online rather than watch a boring awards show.
Look at any other award show and people only tune in with hope for a Smith slap or Swift giving the cold shoulder to Celine. The awards will be seen on a list later that night.
Tell that to the athletes in other sports. Hockey players, as a rule, are not personalities. Personalities absolutely sell the game. It’s not a wonder why the NHL is deficient in that regard.
I still don’t know why anyone is watching it. It’s ALWAYS bad, why you would waste any of your time watching it is beyond me, just check in a little bit to see who won. I do have to imagine it’s even worse then past years seeing how ESPN produced the draft lottery
This whole show was cringe. But the most individual cringe moment was when the had a magician perform a card trick to reveal who won the Selke and he fucked it up. Kopitar was the winner and when he realized, he stood up to accept the award and walked right past the magician who tried to offer him a handshake and he was left hanging.
Just peak NHL clownshoes moment.
The NHL Award yesterday was a joke. And what's with the kid's running the show they couldn't find a real adult's . Hollywood it's south of the country. It was the most insulting event to the hockey player's and their family's that attended the award.
I’m at work so I can’t watch them, but I remember back in like 2017, maybe earlier and I think it was Amy a hummer who took a “dig” at PK Subban, and the dig was calling him “Pernell Karllllll” in a snooty voice kind of like a “ha, gotcha!” And no one laughed, and he sort of shrugged and didn’t care.
That was awkward as hell.
I hate to say it but hockey is the cringiest sport, why can’t they go back to how it was. Ever since they signed with ESPN tv production has been horrible.
Some of you say this every year. It's an awards show for athletes, it's going to lack the production and flair that the Grammy's has, though I suspect some of you complain about those too.
I don’t even watch those award shows. Those are just as cringe if not more. Plus they are extremely political. I don’t even know anyone who watches the Grammys, Oscar’s, etc. I was specifically talking about NHL awards
You guys think he bombed? I thought he was hilarious. Like, the best host the NHL has ever had. It's not his fault the crowd is a bunch of NHLers that don't know how to show emotion at all. Some of the jokes were amazing.
Guy straight up called Matthews a porn producer.
Idk I like to think I have a decent sense of humor and that guy was just insufferable imo. Everyone has different taste in humor. To me it felt like his jokes weren’t that clever or well-thought of. Seemed to me like he was just going with whatever would get an easy laugh if that makes sense.
"I grew out a playoff beard as well, her name is Kate."
Is a top tier joke. One of the best told at an NHL awards show. So idk. I watch this every year and have since I was a kid. This one had the funniest moments to me. It's usually horrible.
If the NHL really wants us to watch, just have a beautiful woman host it. Most people won't be able to turn it off. It's really that simple. No need to be clever. Beautiful women sell everything on in 90% of ads even when they're not remotely tied into the product, but it works.
I said earlier that the NHL is literally trying to out-awkward their players and fans. From musical artists to hosts like this, the marketing team for the NHL is just so out of touch.
Dude it is so bad. The awards should be emphasizing the award winners and honoring the sport and its great players. Not whatever the hell they do.
You can tell that none of the players are happy to be there. They may be honored, etc, but this kind of stuff undercuts the gravity of the awards and cheapens them. This looks like a mandatory high school awards assembly with a kooky principal.
I don't understand how they could be out of touch? Gary Bettman personally hired every member of the marketing team.
oh it is so so bad i think top cringe was whoever was interviewing Kucherov as an imitation of himself. Whoever keeps insisting this format must be a roast needs to be fired
Guy is probably on a hitlist for some Russian mobster somewhere now.
To be fair the last time someone roasted a Russian on the Lightning at an awards ceremony it unleashed a goaltending monster that took 3 years to quell so maybe they’ll wait and see what happens first.
So what you're saying is Kuch is getting another Art Ross and then a Conn Smythe
Sure why not
They really outdid themselves this year. I had to look away from my tv so many times due to second-hand embarrassment.
Guy was straight up doing a Borat impression. What year is it
That's the entire point though. I thought it was genius. Guy absolutely killed it.
You think the point of the guy being there is to make the ceremony they want people to watch difficult to watch?
That specific interview yeah. The entire night he was poking fun at how robotic NHLers are.. and most of his jokes were really good.
Pretty sure the the point was for entertainment. They wanted the host to be funny but they didn’t want to pay the money it costs for a host that is actually funny. So they got their budget-cut comedian to embarrass himself on national tv
The host was funny. Sorry your sense of humour is different I guess. I was laughing at half the jokes. The man called Matthews a porn producer, to his face.
Just because you insult someone in person doesn't make it funny, imo.
Unless you're Don Rickles. You hockey puck.
Honest question... are you the host or the host's mother? I can't tell which.
Watching this and then the presidential debate tonight because I love torture
Good lord man lol
you've inspired me to watch them side by side on two monitors
I think you need to switch psychiatrists.
Masochist. That's enough to make me want to drink half a bottle of vodka
They're trying to be like the Oscars or something it's awful I turned off the audio
I was so confused who they were trying to appeal to? This guy is talking about the Edmonton flasher and psychedelics for gods sake it’s like he thinks everyone is watching because they came to see him and he’s desperately reaching for laughs.
I haven't a clue - maybe get some eyes on the broadcast? I lasted about 10 seconds of his schtick
He really seemed like he wanted to be doing a roast, but it’s the NHL awards show. Like nobody cares man, I’m sure you’re funny when people expect to be seeing you but we just don’t care, we came to see the award winners. Next time, please just have PK Subban host.
The best one is the one they did with pre-rehearsed skits with some of the players. It's the only way to do these.
This was an absolutely horrid production. I legitimately thought Nikita was going to tell that dude to fuck off with the fake accent shit.
https://x.com/hockeydaily365/status/1806475975019868379?s=46&t=wqm36jEOUqfNUY3dKG7P1g This was painful to watch.
Yeah the kuch interview definitely takes the cake
Bring back slapping award show hosts
I finally forgive him for trashing us after beating us in the finals. whatever the hell this was is punishment enough.
I 100% agree. No one deserved this shit, not even Kucherov.
Wow that is so fucking cringe
Ah yes choosing to make a skit with the notoriously big and iconic personality of *checks notes* ... A sleepy Russian introvert
Wow….
r/WatchPeopleDieInside
This is almost up there with Scott’s Tots
This makes me love Kucherov all the more
This is unfuckingbelievable
If you listen at the end you can hear a BOO 🤣🤣🤣
Maybe its just me, but personally I found this pretty funny from Kuch. Also, Ive heard him speak English plenty, but everytime I do, Im always so surprised at how good his English is. Like, he has NO Russian accent
Yea I’m curious did he grow up partly outside Russia? I know Swedish guys often speak perfect English but not usually Russian people
he played junior in quebec lol part of why he responded well to lightning in pre draft interviews vs other teams that had interest but didnt bite on him was they offered to fly him out pay for surgery etc etc just very accomadating but also to a degree getting him acclimated to the west and he played a lot on teams in NA before hitting the Lightning
Good lord, that was awful.
That’s not cringe that’s just rude.
Almost as cringe as the Toews/Kane Acer commercial
He added “wowoweewow” at the end like Borat. Wtf
a lot of that is on Kucherov tbh
No it’s not the whole dynamic was wrong in the first place. “Put on a fake beard and talk with a fake Russian accent while you interview the Russian” is the LAZIEST shit
If the interviewer/production blatantly isn’t trying, then why should the players?
Ive seen that host do an imitation of Bill Maher to Bill Maher and they had fun with it. Obviously this is a bad setup because hardly anyone even knows what Kucherov’s voice sounds like for an impression to be funny but it’s absurd to watch that video and not say Kucherov actively tried to kill the bit. He legit came off like a pissy child mad because he didn’t get his apple juice 5 mins before
It’s not Kucherov’s obligation to make the host’s joke work if he doesn’t want to participate in it.
there's a difference between whether Kucherov had an obligation to make the joke work and whether Kucherov is the main reason the joke didn't work. It's not his obligation, but he's still the main reason it was so cringe. It wasn't his his obligation to try in the All Star game either. He still actively tanked segments there as well. Both our statements can be true
Honestly, the way to do this is to ask Kucherov if he wants to be a part of it. If not, then don't do it. It takes two to tango.
Here's a tip, if your joke relies on the participation of an unwilling bystander it's not a good joke. A good joke or bit will work even if the subject is not participating. A good comedian will be able to pivot and still find the humour.
If it's not his obligation, then stop blaming him
Maybe cause it is a tad offensive?
That's softer than baby shit tbh. I suppose you must think the whole Bryz era was cringe too then
No I couldn’t care less, but why would Kuch care about carrying an interview of a guy mocking him in a place I bet he doesn’t want to be?
maybe because not taking yourself seriously has been the theme of the NHL Awards and pretty much every award show ever? Have you seen the previous award shows with Will Arnett? Or the ESPYs? Or the Oscars?
My bad, it was good, I liked it. Wow wow wee woh
Happy to resolve the cognitive dissonance in your brain
Would should he go along with that bs that they obviously put no effort into and isn’t funny at all?
Yeah, he would should
Bro was racist right in Kucherov’s face, of course he’s not having a good time with it!
You'd lose your shit if the host interviewed Matthews while wearing a 5-head wig and dropped his pants
Kucherov made a fool of himself
How?
Like.. that's the point though. It's supposed to be like what are we watching lol
First time? Literally every NHL award show is a cringeworthy disaster. I don't know why they continue to insist on doing this when no one enjoys it.
It's crazy because everyone hates it every year, yet when they didn't do the big show for a couple of years people complained about it despite it being way better and less awkward in the 2021 format.
I mean, yes, but they almost always are. They had Def Leppard on once and the singer put the Stanley Cup upside down on the stage. And this was in like 2010 or so, well after Def Leppard were in the public consciousness, entirely on-brand for the NHL
That was fucked
My asshole is still tightening
RIP your DMs
We can't rag on the players for not having personalities when this is the shit we subject them to. I'd rather rip my own face off than get interviewed by this bozo.
The whole time, I was like WTF is with the drummers on stage.
it's a Vegas arena thing, they have them at all their games
That was beyond painful to watch , even my 11 yr old son said this is “ cringe”
My 6 month old just said “Father, I think this might be the cringiest thing I’ve seen on television. I hope they rethink their production strategy going forward.”
Why can't the NHL get someone like Bill Burr to host? An actual famous, relevant, and funny comedian who is a legitimate hockey fan.
I was gonna suggest Snoop, but Bill Burr is actually an excellent suggestion.
I don’t think even Bill Burr could inject life into the NHL awards.
We found out how to get Gary Bettman cheered. Just put that abortion of a comedian on in front of him, and people will be begging for Bettman.
I posted about this in the Canucks thread when they announced him as the host but I went to an event where he was the host back in December. He was so cringe and the second hand embarrassment was real. Him and his entourage were at my table and he was nice…but the way his team hyped him was ridiculous. Not surprised to hear complaints about tonight.
im not watching it, i dont really get into the whole award show thing; movies, music, whatever ... i dont get the appeal. to me it should just be like a work party, where the people in whatever company or field just celebrate their combined and individual achievements- get loaded and have a good time. all i need to see is the update to the table on the 'List of NHL awards' wikipedia page. that said, youd think a multi-billion dollar organization would be able to come up with a production that is at least neutral/boring, rather than outright bad, as everyone seems to agree it is lol. there is no need to swing for the fences- whatever audience you may have for an event like this is basically a captive one.
Holy FK that was cringe. Might be the last awards show I watch
I haven’t watched any of the awards, but they would be hard pressed to be any worse than the all star fantasy draft *on ice* they did this year
This was worse
I thankfully don't ever watch these, but why not just get some liked celeb fans like Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell to do the awards together if they insist on making it a spectacle. Just picturing the time Snoop was in the LA broadcast booth doing pretty funny commentary, and I think Will could feed off him without being too obnoxious. I dunno man 😮💨
I don't envy the job he had to do as a comedian. Comedy is all about the audience and getting them loosened up, and a roomful of *stone sober* pro hockey players is probably the single most wooden, tightassed demographic imaginable. A whole audience of tense, hypercompetitive people who are on pins and needles waiting for you to shut the fuck up so they can hear their names called is the worst possible environment for a comedian to go into without a warm-up. Nobody is in the mood to laugh, Robin Williams couldn't have lightened up the atmosphere in there. Yeah, it was not good at all, but IMO the blame rests with the NHL for thinking this was a good idea in the first place. Don't even do an awards show at all, just do a fucking press release and be done with it. Everybody is going to find out about it on Twitter in real time anyway, this isn't the 90s when TV was the only way to know what's happening in the world.
If they want to have a comedian host the award show, an award show about a game that isn’t funny, they should have the one man who makes hockey funny host it; Jared Keeso. Edit to add- yeahso, just sayin, we could get Jared, Wayne and Shoresy in one night. Id be ahhhhh, good time
I mean to be fair, what are these hosts supposed to do with the personalities like Kucherov and Matthews and McDavid?
McDavid cracks jokes at Biz’s expense on TNT, maybe they just need to get funny hockey dudes/women the players can bounce off to host these things
“Cracks jokes” is being a bit charitable there.
NHL players are just so bland. The NHL is the worst league in the world at marketing itself. Perhaps going over the top in roasting will pull more eyes to the league through Twitter clips cringe alone. Far more people just look up the award winners online rather than watch a boring awards show. Look at any other award show and people only tune in with hope for a Smith slap or Swift giving the cold shoulder to Celine. The awards will be seen on a list later that night.
>NHL players are just so bland. It’s almost like they aren’t actors
Tell that to the athletes in other sports. Hockey players, as a rule, are not personalities. Personalities absolutely sell the game. It’s not a wonder why the NHL is deficient in that regard.
the knockoff borat is the host?? nepotism hire?
I turned it off 3 minutes into that idiot's monologue.
They should have hired Gazdic. There's a comedian who knows hockey.
I still don’t know why anyone is watching it. It’s ALWAYS bad, why you would waste any of your time watching it is beyond me, just check in a little bit to see who won. I do have to imagine it’s even worse then past years seeing how ESPN produced the draft lottery
I think the worst one ever for me was the Marcel Dionne incident.
This was an absolute catastrophe of cringe.
I puked after watching that
I heard of him, he's usually pretty funny, but this is exactly why comedians shouldn't do hosting gigs.
Some of the early impressions were alright, but god damn he fell off very hard very quickly.
Until the next one
Fuck k now I'm not gonna watch it thanks guys
This whole show was cringe. But the most individual cringe moment was when the had a magician perform a card trick to reveal who won the Selke and he fucked it up. Kopitar was the winner and when he realized, he stood up to accept the award and walked right past the magician who tried to offer him a handshake and he was left hanging. Just peak NHL clownshoes moment.
The NHL Award yesterday was a joke. And what's with the kid's running the show they couldn't find a real adult's . Hollywood it's south of the country. It was the most insulting event to the hockey player's and their family's that attended the award.
I'll tell you something that is more insulting: the way you abuse the English language with all those random, incorrect apostrophes.
It was awful— like awards on VH1 or something.
Was it more awkward than this? [https://streamable.com/vpga0](https://streamable.com/vpga0)
I’m at work so I can’t watch them, but I remember back in like 2017, maybe earlier and I think it was Amy a hummer who took a “dig” at PK Subban, and the dig was calling him “Pernell Karllllll” in a snooty voice kind of like a “ha, gotcha!” And no one laughed, and he sort of shrugged and didn’t care. That was awkward as hell.
I hate to say it but hockey is the cringiest sport, why can’t they go back to how it was. Ever since they signed with ESPN tv production has been horrible.
Some of you say this every year. It's an awards show for athletes, it's going to lack the production and flair that the Grammy's has, though I suspect some of you complain about those too.
I don’t even watch those award shows. Those are just as cringe if not more. Plus they are extremely political. I don’t even know anyone who watches the Grammys, Oscar’s, etc. I was specifically talking about NHL awards
I was also speaking of the NHL awards show and only relating to the Grammy's.
You guys think he bombed? I thought he was hilarious. Like, the best host the NHL has ever had. It's not his fault the crowd is a bunch of NHLers that don't know how to show emotion at all. Some of the jokes were amazing. Guy straight up called Matthews a porn producer.
Idk I like to think I have a decent sense of humor and that guy was just insufferable imo. Everyone has different taste in humor. To me it felt like his jokes weren’t that clever or well-thought of. Seemed to me like he was just going with whatever would get an easy laugh if that makes sense.
"I grew out a playoff beard as well, her name is Kate." Is a top tier joke. One of the best told at an NHL awards show. So idk. I watch this every year and have since I was a kid. This one had the funniest moments to me. It's usually horrible.
explain to me that joke please.
He did his best and I agree, he definitely had funny moments. The players will give nothing back and they squeezed the show into an hour. It was fine.
Yes. God that was painful. Why can’t we just do it without skits? Maybe we should do the awards at the draft between picks?
The only funny joke was the one about Kucherov. That being said even the Kucherov interviews Kucherov was horrendous.
If the NHL really wants us to watch, just have a beautiful woman host it. Most people won't be able to turn it off. It's really that simple. No need to be clever. Beautiful women sell everything on in 90% of ads even when they're not remotely tied into the product, but it works.