ESPN’s top hockey broadcast team will have the call of the 2025 Stadium Series Saturday night in Ohio Stadium when the Detroit Red Wings play the Columbus Blue Jackets. This will mark Sean McDonough’s first call of a Blue Jackets’ game on ESPN.
McDonough has been to the Horseshoe on several occasions for college football calling Ohio State games. But calling hockey games is quite the different assignment especially when the game is in a football stadium.
Before he calls the Stadium Series with Ray Ferraro, Emily Kaplan, Kevin Weekes and Marty Smith, McDonough spoke to the Hockey Writers on various topics including the preparation involved for an outdoor game. He opens up on that, the game storylines and how they make sure to present them to a bigger audience. He also talks about lessons learned from the past as well as how the Blue Jackets are perceived nationally.
Here is our conversation.
Differences in Preparation?
“It’s not a lot different,” McDonough said of preparing for an outdoor game. “I think the major part of the focus and preparation is getting to know the teams. This is our fourth year back in the NHL at ESPN and ABC and I have not done a Columbus Blue Jackets game yet. So I’m immersing myself this week in that and just getting to know the players and the storylines. And the same is true of Detroit. I’ve had some Red Wing games in the past. I have not had one this year. But preparing for them and then meaning of the game, they’re both right in the thick of it in a really crowded playoff race in the Eastern Conference.”
“And then, you want also to have the historical context. I think that’s where the preparation is different. We don’t spend much time typically day-to-day talking about the arenas that these games are played in. But when we do these, you do. The people want to know the history of Ohio Stadium and the great teams that have been played there and what the size of the crowd is. We spend time focusing during the game on the weather, which we never do in a game that’s indoors and the condition of the ice and that sort of thing. For the most part especially in the preparation, but also the execution of the game, it’s pretty standard for what we would do week-to-week on an evening game and Saturday. It is a little bit different because it’s outdoors.”
Determining Storylines
Broadcast crews have the task of determining what storylines to highlight during the game. When there are so many to choose from, there is a challenge not only picking storylines, but how to present them. McDonough shared what goes into his thought process.
“It’s really biggest part of our challenge, I think, week-to-week, but particularly like this. I was just on a podcast with a couple of friends of mine, former sports anchors in Boston, Bob Lobel and Mike Lynch, who do a podcast called Unanchored. And we were talking about the championship game of the 4-Nations. And it was similar in that even though these are the biggest names in hockey, in 92 of the best players in the world on the four teams and then half of that in championship game. We still were conscious of the fact because of the build up to it that there are going to be a lot of people watching that game last Thursday night who weren’t hardcore hockey fans, who didn’t know much or grasp anything about the players.”
“It’s a huge challenge in hockey just because it goes so fast. It’s not like baseball where you have these lulls. Thankfully fewer now with pitch clock. But the puck is moving very quickly. Something can happen in a second, a penalty, a goal, whatever the big hit that you don’t really want to be in mid-sentence when that’s happening. You have to pick your spots. And to me, they’re almost like little bullet points or nuggets about players. If you have more time, then just slide that in.”
📢 #NHL fans – #StadiumSeries is coming to Columbus, Ohio this weekend!
For their 1st time on the outdoor stage, the @BlueJacketsNHL take on the @DetroitRedWings – who will make their 5th outdoor game appearance
🏒 Saturday | 6p ET | ESPN, ESPN+, Disney+ pic.twitter.com/eAI1vfVIdg
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) February 26, 2025
“To me, one of the interesting stories that we told Thursday night was about the history between Brad Marchand and Sam Bennett a year ago in the playoffs. Bennett lays out Marchand, a controversial hit. Got a lot of conversation. Marchand gets hurt, misses two games. Bennett scores a controversial goal in the next game in which Marchand didn’t play. So you try to have stories like that ready to go, and then the game dictates whether or not there’s actually an opportunity to tell it.”
“So prepare as much as you can. Try to know as much about the players as you can, and then prioritize which are the most important or interesting stories. And then if you can, weave them in when they’re involved in the play. Someone’s carrying the puck up the ice and you have ten seconds to say he’s leading the National Hockey League in plus/minus right now, then that’s when you should do it.”
Learning From the Past
No matter what walk of life someone has, there is always a desire to get better at what you do. It’s no different for a hockey broadcaster.
The Stadium Series presents a unique challenge for McDonough. Let him explain that challenge and how it’s an area that he thinks the broadcast will be better for now than in the past.
“One of the things that I learned last year is sometimes you have to call the game basically off the monitor. We were in the football TV booth at MetLife Stadium, which is perfect if you’re doing a football game. It’s at the 50-yard line. It’s not that high off the field. It’s spacious. But for a hockey game, it wasn’t perfect. It was a tough angle. It was lower than you want to be given how far away we were. The people who are on the half of the ice closest to us were almost completely blocked out by the boards.”
“So last year, we had a much bigger monitor in the booth than we would typically have for a hockey game in a hockey arena and I called a lot of it off the monitor. I won’t know until I get there on Friday what this vantage point is like. I think it’s, you’re going to be in a booth that’s typically a football booth. I’ve done football games there. It’s a fine vantage point to do football. But finding the way to best be able to call the action, I don’t think I’ve ever called any other hockey game in my life off my monitor, but I did call a lot of it last year in New Jersey. That’s the biggest challenge for me is generally, these booths were not set up to be broadcasting a hockey game that’s set up in the middle of a football stadium. So trying to get the best view of the action is the biggest priority for me.”
National Perception of the Blue Jackets
Blue Jackets’ fans are not used to the national attention their team is getting. Given the events of the offseason coupled with the team being in the playoff hunt, it’s making for one of the greatest stories in sports.
Here’s McDonough on what the national perception of the Blue Jackets is coming into this game.
“I think it’s impressive what they’ve done. You look at the roster to your point, they’re not on national TV very much. And then when you look at the roster even though there’s not a lot of household names on the team, there are a lot of excellent hockey players. Zach Werenski got a tremendous amount of attention for one during the 4-Nations Faceoff. He should. He’s a great player. He’s having a Norris Trophy caliber season.”
“I think another one of our challenges is to explain why is Columbus having this kind of year. Why are they exceeding most people’s expectations? And I do think, obviously, Johnny Gaudreau is going to be a part of this. I think for many of us, the success is probably even more surprising given his tragic death and what a great player he was and how important a part of this team he would have been.”
“I remember living in Boston. We had the marathon bombing. The Red Sox weren’t expected to be any good and they wound up winning the World Series. One of to me, the most emotional, most awesome parts of the 4-Nations Faceoff was Johnny’s dad being brought to practice being at the dinner before the tournament started, and then having Johnny’s number 13 in the locker room and giving it to the player of the game. And Michael Eruzione walking out on the ice and the huge buildup to the game having Johnny’s number on.”
“So I think it’s not at all surprising and it is wonderful how the tributes that continue to be paid to him and to Matthew and the outpouring of affection for their family. It’s still just incredibly heartbreakingly sad. I think that’ll be another part of the telecast for us making sure that we talk about Johnny in many ways that he is still a very big part of this team. And as we saw in the 4-Nations Faceoff in this sport, that will never change. When you just think about it, it’s just tragic beyond just about anything else I can think of or remember.”
“I’m learning about the Blue Jackets as we go. I’m looking forward to telling the stories along with Ray and Emily and the rest of our team. And it’s great for hockey. The Red Wings obviously have a long playoff drought themselves. Ottawa is right there. The teams I think we typically think about being in the playoffs, Boston, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh, although they’ve missed the last couple of years. Now that almost feels like a little bit of a changing of the guard here in some ways.”