In recent years, the NFL has done kid-friendly broadcasts, sponsored by the Nickelodeon channel, featuring fun graphics. The NHL is now following this trend with a quirky kids broadcast of their own.

Rich stayed in a hotel Tuesday night and couldn’t watch the Bruins game because he couldn’t log into his NESN 360 account. Naturally, he started to channel surf and found the “NHL Big City Greens Classic,” sponsored by the Disney channel.

• A hockey game like no other‼️
  
  Tonight's Big City Greens Classic is a first-of-its-kind live volumetric animation of an NHL game 🏒
  
  🏙 @Capitals-@NYRangers
  🥅 7 PM ET on ESPN+/@DisneyPlus pic.twitter.com/VflH46jhIW

  — ESPN+ (@ESPNPlus) March 14, 2023

• Rich: I stayed in a hotel last night because of the snowstorm. Of course, nothing ended up happening with the weather. So, it was totally unnecessary for me to be there. 

  I got to the hotel and my plan was to watch the Bruins game. I’ll just watch the Bruins game in my hotel room and then sleep. 

  Most hotels now, though, don’t have a cable system. It’s like a streaming service. My hotel yesterday had something similar to YouTube TV where you can scroll through streaming options. And, of course, there was no NESN option. 

  I’m an idiot. What am I doing paying $30 a month for NESN 360? Every streaming service I have isn’t more than half the price of that. It just really pissed me off yesterday. 

• https://twitter.com/Marchy4Byng/status/1635783525826699271

• Rich: So, you know what I did? I had such a hard time logging in to NESN 360 that I started watching that thing the NHL had set up. In conjunction with the Disney Channel, the NHL did something crazy. And they’re a league that does everything to ruin the viewership of the product by streaming games in different places. For example, the Connor McDavid versus the Bruins game was hidden from the world on ESPN plus, and that was a marquee showcase. 

• Tonight, Disney is airing an animated, alternate broadcast of the Caps-Rangers game — the "NHL Big City Greens Classic."
  
  It's using live, real-time animations of players modeled after Disney's show, "Big City Greens". pic.twitter.com/tRhaAJwuAY

  — Front Office Sports (@FOS) March 14, 2023

• Rich: But yesterday, the NHL did this stupid thing in conjunction with a Disney cartoon show called “Big City Greens.” Last night’s game was the Washington Capitals versus the New York Rangers. And they used this special technology to make the players appear as cartoon characters live during the broadcast. On top of that, Kevin Weekes and the other broadcasters appeared as these giant cartoon people, and it was fascinating. 

  Am I wrong in the head for secretly wanting to see a grizzly injury during that? How funny would it be if one of the cartoon characters just had their head fall off? Or what if there was blood on the ice and just these rainbow graphics placed over it? 

   

• Full Segment

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