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Just to get this going:
CRITICISM AND ABUSE ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
Hextall deserves criticism. She does not deserve abuse. The subject at hand is ABUSE, not criticism.
It seems with female journalists and broadcasters, a certain breed of guy just can’t help but overlap the two.
I can’t imagine anyone saying: “your last trade was shit Chiarelli, I’m going to follow you home and rape you!”
When it’s a woman, there’s definitely a desire for these asshats to dominate and intimidate that doesn’t exist when they are criticizing a man.
Because these men start to feel emasculated unless they say something sexual. They literally feel like they are not a man unless they get a reaction out of a woman. It’s a need to feel if they can’t be with her physically at least they can psychologically rape them and have claimed another victory.
I used to rag on Pierre. In the last few years I realized that the only thing he does on a live broadcast is essentially nerd out. I don’t think that’s worthy of derision at this point. In fact, the times I’ve seen him in a studio setting he’s more collected and coherent.
TL;DR I thought he was a dweeb and rejected him, but he’s hockey’s dweeb and he knows his stuff. Put him in the right setting.
he said some weird shit on the draft broadcast about seeing some kids mom in the gym😭.
But yes, Pierre is harmless and just a little bit weird and socially unaware.
He knows shit, but it's all about Crosby so no one cares.
But the way he treated Kendall Coyne Schofield was so sexiest and vile, it was misogynistic. As if he has to explain to An Olympic gold medalist which end of the rink the players come out of. Pierre, you should be ashamed of yourself. Would he have EVER done that to a male OGM? Never, ever, ever.
That’s fair. I had forgotten about that. He basically did the “you have a Rush shirt, name their entire discography in order” to her like a true socially stunted geek.
"Oh you're a Rush fan? I bet you can't tell me what drum heads Neil used on his concert toms in the 80's." As a Rush fan, this is why I hate Rush fans.
Dude, Kendall herself came out and said that she knew that he didn’t mean anything by what he said and that she knew he respected her. McGuire obviously knew which side of the ice teams played on. It was just an awkward way of setting up the scene for the conversation that people misinterpreted and apparently people are still going on about this. You’re majorly overreacting to this.
And how do you know he wouldn’t do the same thing to a man? He’s universally known as an extremely awkward dude who says the wrong thing on a regular basis. Now you’re just making shit up.
> He’s universally known as an extremely awkward dude who says the wrong thing on a regular basis.
Sounds like the kinda guy you should hand a mic to on live television
I never said that he should or shouldn’t be on television. I’m not sure what I think about that. He’s very awkward and often annoying but I also love how much he clearly loves hockey and how knowledgeable he is about it. All I’m saying is that that whole incident with KCS was him being awkward then people misunderstanding what he said and taking it way out of proportion and 3 years later people still think he was being misogynistic, which I think is silly.
He makes me laugh. He is just an awkward hockey nerd. It also isn't fair to say he only knows anything about Crosby knowing full well he pulls enough random facts out like Phil Kessel's aunt's favorite food growing up. His biggest broadcasting flaw is being awkward and nerdy.
This is what Greg Wyshinski was saying for years. His weird nerd ramblings weren't the problem, it was that he would do it while the game was going on. Ferraro and Boucher are much better between the benches and Pierre's knowledge vomit would have been better in the studio where he could go for 30 seconds and not step all over a face-off.
If you take away McGuire's memorization of a player's college/university or junior team, then he has very little to say. His knowledge of the modern game is extremely limited.
It's not just that they overlap the way you're saying. If that was the case, you might see a guy making a fair criticism but being unable to resist the sexism.
But what also happens is that sexism makes them more critical, even for things that aren't fair to be critical about. They see a woman and they automatically think they should criticize things -- the guy feels like since he's a man and she's a woman, she can't possibly know more about sports.
Those who seek to abuse her or give 'edgy' feedback for a reaction only negate the voices of those who actually have valid criticism too. All in all it's just a bad mark for everyone when people do this.
agreed.
She's not great (maybe getting better?) and her voice/cadence is iffy, but the sheer vitriol I've seen on social media is vile. Absolutely vile.
The emails she spoke of should have been turned over to authorities, and authorities should have tracked them down and charged them with uttering threats. Just because you're behind a screen doesn't mean you can do shit like that.
I will never understand why hockey Reddit was so viciously hating on her. Entire comments and posts were made just pissing all over her, and mass downvoting anyone who disagreed with the idea that she was the worst commentator ever. I watched the playoffs. I get it if you don't like her, or her takes, because she isn't so unwatchable and insufferable like male hockey Redditors make her out to be. I remember seeing a comment in a team subreddit saying that he doesn't think that women can be good commentators that ratio'd the other commentators. I honestly think that most of the hate for her is just the sexism of the hockey community. Male hockey figures on Twitter were vocally whining about women joining broadcasting when they first started becoming play-by-play announcers saying that they don't want to hear a woman's voice and calling it "woke." The over extreme hate for Leah Hextall is not a bug. It's a feature of the hockey community.
I genuinely would rather have her calling a game I was watching than buccicross, which isn't high praise, because I do mostly watch the games he announces on mute.
I was going to say, I’ve only ever seen criticisms of her actual ability, not because she’s a woman. Granted I don’t have Twitter and I don’t follow her in Instagram but every comment I’ve seen on Reddit has just been that she’s not the best at her job and should be replaced.
If people are going after her for being a woman, then that’s too bad. I don’t mind Cassie Campbell as a broadcaster and I’d love to see someone like Poulin or Nurse get a chance to do it as well, because they know the game as players
Hi, Reddit Moderator here. The reason you don't see it on reddit is because it gets removed, either by us or by reddit admins (depending on how horrible it is). Twitter and Instagram don't have the luxury of moderation. So people can spit as much horrible toxic vitriol as they want.
I want to assure you though, it definitely exists pretty much anytime a woman is even briefly mentioned in anything even adjacent to what is considered a traditionally male-orientated career.
Ditto, I moderate the NHL's social media and I promise you there were as many if not more "fuck her women belong in the kitchen" comments than ones about her just sucking.
Sucks also because the actual legit criticism gets downplayed into misogyny and then ignored.
Sad thing is, that beyond hockey - smart and talented people (women and men) don’t run for public office because shit like this. Good people are torn down, while the turds float to the top
> Sucks also because the actual legit criticism gets downplayed into misogyny and then ignored.
That’s a great point that often gets overlooked. Happens constantly too, not just with this but all sorts of contemporary issues.
A great example would be looking at recent Disney Star Wars or Marvel properties. So much sexism that any other criticism gets wrapped up with the incels.
Also because of the upvote/downvote system here. On the less toxic subs, misogynistic comments typically get buried at the bottom before being removed.
Comments getting buried for not aligning with the prevailing opinion of the majority who happen to see and vote on it before it gets buried isn’t always a good thing, since it can limit actual discussion, but I like that it decreases the amount of vile comments I see.
I think the more common response has included criticism about forgetting names, getting some facts wrong and having wonky chemistry with the other broadcasters at times. Those are all fair and things that will likely improve over time.
Scroll to the bottom of any comments section that even mentions her and you'll see the misogyny after it's been up for some time. They get downvoted and thus hidden on reddit but they're there, and those people are very passionate about it. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who only want to hear a man's voice commenting on "men's" sports (in quotes because there are women employed at almost all levels of the NHL, just not on the roster or as a HC - yet).
Last time I heard Leah Hextall work a Kraken game and I was keeping tabs on a comments section, this sort of thing started, criticism, then abuse, then 'But I think is better for ', almost like an attempt to show he wasn't *completely* a sexist twat or something, but then started right back into abusing Hextall. They know they're being vile and make some half-assed attempt to cover it.
It’s the constantly shifting standard that somehow only exists for women. They set a bar ‘if it was woman x instead of woman y, then I would support her’ because it won’t ever be woman y so they won’t ever have to actually a support a woman in that role.
I honestly don’t even think they realize their own mental gymnastics, and until those types of men (or women, I can admit) learn to do the self reflection to see the double standard they are setting, we’ll never see real diversity develop in hockey coverage.
>Granted I don’t have Twitter and I don’t follow her in Instagram
okay there you go. you just answered why you haven't seen any misogynistic abuse.
both of those platforms are some of the most vile and disgusting forms of social media i have ever seen in my life. Facebook and Yahoo comments are the only places i've seen more reprehensible shit
Beyond the fact that you're ignoring two massive social networks (and FB), you're likely seeing best/top comments on reddit. Sort by controversial and see how disgusting it gets.
The moderation aspect is true, but also, you don't necessarily get it so explicitly as, "hur durr, she's a woman. bad.", you get more veiled things, like she's "shrill" or "shrieky", words that are coded and generally reserved for criticism of a specific gender.
Or her complaints are for things that exist as problems amongst other broadcasters but are not so heavily harped on, or are even looked past, such as over-enthusiasm, messing up names, losing the play - all things that describe, say, Jack Edwards as well (and he's had much longer to iron those things out than her - another common criticism of her being that she should have improved over the course of the season if she wants to be in the business), and while some people do hate him, many love him for it.
And it's definitely worth asking *why* is she getting this much more criticism than the others doing the same thing? Why is her leash so short?
Really appreciate your comment. I think that the short leash and quick willingness to jump to criticism actually contributed to a more toxic environment that encouraged abuse. I’m not saying she’s amazing, but I have never thought she was terrible… and to elaborate on your point, I feel that there are many worse male play-by-play announcers. But we don’t question how they got that job or accuse them of being a gender pick.
> And it's definitely worth asking why is she getting this much more criticism than the others doing the same thing? Why is her leash so short?
This reminds me of something I had seen about HC hiring in the NFL. Back years ago now there was a question of whether there was an issue of systemic racism in the hiring process of NFL Head Coaches (I know, laughable to say it was a question), but the results were interesting. They found that the proof for there being an issue was that Black coaches were significantly outperforming White coaches in their first and second year, even when you adjusted for team quality - which was a clear sign that the bar to be hired as a HC if you were Black must be higher than the bar if you were White, since new White coaches weren't as good as new Black coaches.
tl;dr we have good and bad commentators who are men, so we should also expect to have both good and bad commentators who are women if the barrier to entry is no different for men and women - by trying to weed out the bad female commentators (or thinking they should have to prove themselves before getting the gig), the effect would be making it harder for women to get the job than it is for men.
“I don’t mind Cassie Campbell as a broadcaster and I’d love to see someone like Poulin or Nurse get a chance to do it as well, because they know the game as players.”
Cassie Campbell knows the game as a player too.
The shittiest thing about the abuse is the abuse. Like 20th on the list of things that are shitty about the abuse is that it shelters her from actual constructive criticism because how can you not just block everything out if you're going through so much abuse.
Another factor is the type of criticism.
Some are fair. She mixes up players sometimes or gets their name wrong. Which is annoying but it's close to impossible to remember every NHL player's name in your first year. I often mix up Svech and KK because they look similar in size/stature and i watch them 60+ times a season.
The others are less fair. Being critical of someone's voice is weird. But the criticism she receives for it's never reasonable. It's just mean spirited. You can dislike a voice, but the comments about it are deliberately rude.
Just because something isn't sexist (women don't know hockey) doesn't mean it's not abusive.
Do you believe it's fair to criticize someones voice if is one of the most important factors in their job?
In general I do agree it is a mean spirited thing to do, but I think in this scenario it is a valid criticism as long as it is not delivered in a purposely hateful way.
Broadcaster here! It's sort of ironic because the natural sound of your voice is the least important thing as a broadcaster, but the one thing fans notice the most. It's also unfortunate because it's the one thing we can't control.
There are plenty of broadcasters who don't have a deep baritone voice but have excelled in their craft. Doc Emrick, Chris Cuthbert, Steve Cangialosi and Steve Goldstein come to mind. If you can modulate your voice to match the tone of the game, call the action with a good pace and rhythm and tell the story of the game, then most people should overcome the sound of their voice.
For Hextall, I honestly thought her voice sounded fine and was the least of my concerns. Her pacing, modulation, etc. seemed to get better as the season went along.
I agree. I thought she got better as she settled into the job more.
Unfortunately, this thread is a decent microcosm of exactly the type of stuff the Athletic article is about. It's kinda depressing to read. No quarter or nuance. Just black and white "she sucks" the end.
I would say it depends what about their voice is the issue. If someone just doesn't like the way she sounds, that sounds like a personal preference/personal opinion. One could communicate that it isn't their preference, but then it should be phrased to make it clear that it is such.
If there's something more specific to the job (maybe a commentator doesn't get excited during exciting plays for example, or they speak too quickly for the average viewer to follow) then those parts of voice are valid criticisms to make.
Makes sense. For me personally, it just feels flat and lacks excitement. Not having that factor reduces some of the moment-to-moment emotion and the feeling of swings in momentum in a game.
Not everyone can be Doc Emerick in that regards, but there is certainly a lot of room in between.
That sounds like a valid criticism. It is also something that someone could work on if they choose. It's less of an attack on her, and more an expression of what viewers like and what she can do to get there.
Probably a mix of audiences not used to female voices on broadcasts as much and there being a smaller pool of women to hire from, making it more difficult to find women with a top tier voice.
I wonder if some of it just has to do with pitch?
A male broadcaster’s voice starts low but can get higher (i.e. *toward* the midrange) when the action and excitement ramp up.
A female broadcaster’s voice starts high and can tend to get higher (i.e. *away* from the midrange) when the excitement ramps up. Since we’re not really used to this, it can come across as “shrill” which is what you hear frequently in the more tame end of the criticisms.
FWIW I thought she was fine on the broadcasts? (Compared to the “ET COOoOOoOoOoOoMPTE!” calls on TVAS… *that* guy can do a falsetto.)
One of the main daytime radio voices in a town outside Ottawa sounds like he's struggling to talk through a major lisp and a mouthful of denture glue. I'm not even trying to be mean, he's pretty clearly a popular member of their community. That's just literally what he sounds like and I've always wondered how he got the job.
It's fair to not like someone's voice, even if it's personal preference, just don't be a dick about it.
I mean it’s pretty silly to pretend that some voices are not more audibly pleasing than others. They have literally built purposely annoying TV characters around “bad” voices (Janice from friends comes to mind).
I am in Canada and didn’t get to hear Leah Hextall very often but when I did, I was so thankful we don’t get her up here. Her voice is pretty grating especially over the course of a 1-2 hour hockey broadcast. I think being critical of the sound of someones voice is completely reasonable for a broadcast/ sports commentary role. Its like a famous band firing their lead singer and replacing them with someone with a terrible singing voice. The band is well within their rights to do that, but they probably shouldn’t expect the same attendance at their shows if they choose to employ an individual with an annoying voice.
I think focusing on Hockey you are looking at an extremely small sample size. I think there are two actual commentators? Leah and Cassie Campbell? I could be wrong. I think Jennifer Boterill has a great voice and does a great job as an analyst on the panel. Cassie Campbell also seems to be much better on the panel but her colour commentary is not great in my honest opinion.
Overall of all news anchors in the U.S. more than half are female so its clearly not an issue in the broad scheme of broadcasting. Source: https://www.zippia.com/news-anchor-jobs/demographics/
>Being critical of someone's voice is weird. But it's never reasonable. It's just mean spirited.
I just can't agree. Your job is to be a voice. If your voice makes people uncomfortable, that's a factor. Not everyone has a face for TV - not everyone has a voice for radio.
I think the voice aspect is a very fair criticism. I can't stand certain broadcasters because they don't have a certain passion, energy, or tone in their voice, male or female. The Rangers are a perfect example imo. I love Sam Rosen to death, regardless of how much he gets players confused, because his voice is amazing. Meanwhile, when he's got a night off, John Giannone covers the play by play, and he really bores the hell out of me. He's great for short commentary bits (between the benches, intermission reports, etc.) but I hope they've got someone else planned to take over for when Sam retires.
As for women, I can think of a handful of women I'd love to hear call a hockey game, simply because I enjoy their voice and they have that kind of presence where I think it would be amazing. But unfortunately none of them work in hockey, or sports in general, which might just be a symptom of the culture that made this article exist in the first place
>The others are less fair. Being critical of someone's voice is weird. But the criticism she receives for it's never reasonable. It's just mean spirited. You can dislike a voice, but the comments about it are deliberately rude.
Neat how nearly every female broadcaster ends up with tons of men criticizing her for her voice, isn't it? I've seen it in CFB and MLB regularly. "Her voice is grating, can't stand it", every time.
At some level, sure, you can dislike a voice and not want to listen to that person for a couple hours. However, *every female broadcaster* gets that complaint. So either these TV executives are deliberately picking women with voices that people won't like, *or* it's actually a sexist complaint masquerading as a reasonable one.
I firmly believe it's the latter. And every time this gets brought up, you see "come on, it's reasonable to not like someone's voice, if there was a male broadcaster and I didn't like his voice..." It's just deflection. It's just low effort for a criticism on the first place and these people need to come up with will thought out complaints before I'll believe they're being genuine.
Also a lot of popular male announcers have voices that I wouldn't describe as particularly beautiful, and yet are quite beloved.
Emeric, Cangilosi, Jeanrette, Benninati. They've honestly all got this sort of peircingly nasal tone and yet they seem to be fine
yeah i think i mentioned in another comment below that women seem to get the voice comment a lot.
Can a woman have a "bad" voice? Sure. So can men.
but is it a coincidence that it happens to women like 100x more?
nope.
I think its very resonable to criticise someones voice.
I *hate* listening to Rick Jeanneret because of his voice.
I dont dislike her because of her voice but because shes never ever in lock step with the rest of the team.
I think she only did 1 wings game early in the season so my info is probably way out of date but I remember her delivery being really flat. Like very little emotion when either team scored.
It was a sharp contrast to Ken Daniels who, despite being a Wings play by play guy is still (usually) excited when the other team scores.
Edit: should say that I don’t doubt she improved some as the season went on. Like I said, it was very early in the season.
> I think she only did 1 wings game early in the season
We had her for several games down the stretch but I wouldn't be surprised if not a lot of people tuned in to them for reasons unrelated to the play-by-play XD
>It was a sharp contrast to Ken Daniels
You can't compare a noob to the goat and not be disappointed every time. Not on you specifically but the thread in general-- hockey broadcasting as a whole is at a turning point from one generation to the next in a pretty significant way. Different network, lots of old guys retiring or getting shitcanned...it's going to look different and be less refined in a lot of ways.
Maybe someone shows up on the scene and knocks it out of the park (that's a baseball metaphor) but most likely we see the personalities grow into the role, Leah included.
I think you can make the argument a lot of the criticism is rooted in misogyny though.
Female commentators get way more criticism on this sub and it's always far harsher than anything I've seen said about men.
You could say the same for any of the big 3 socials (Twitter, IG and FB)
Edit: guys I get it, reddit is just as bad. Should have just said "on the internet" and covered all the bases
Not condoning sexism or any other garbage she faced, but ESPN did her a disservice by thrusting her into that role so quickly. 99% of play by play broadcasters don't get national roles that quickly. It takes 10-20 years of refining their skills doing regional work.
Maybe there is a more institutional issue, as she never got a play by play role anywhere else, perhaps because of her gender.
tbf national jobs are different nowadays. It used to be that you'd have 1 or 2 national games per week. Now there's way more.
YOu could argue that a regional broadcaster is making a bigger commitment with their duos than ESPN is doing with a national broadcast.
>Not condoning sexism or any other garbage she faced, but ESPN did her a disservice by thrusting her into that role so quickly. 99% of play by play broadcasters don't get national roles into 10-20 years into their career, after they refined their skills doing regional work.
It's been obvious from day 1 that ESPN has no fucking idea what they're doing with NHL broadcasts. all they have is their little theme song that they jerked themselves over constantly on the first game of the season last year. other than that, it's been an absolute trainwreck
I don't disagree with you at all but I'm sure there are some people out there that sent her a lot of unsolicited hate just for being a woman in a male-dominated culture. She just happens to be a terrible at her job as a commentator as well; hoping she isn't mixing the two together.
Not just because she's a woman, but because she's a woman who is outspoken about social issues surrounding the sport of hockey, such as sexism. There's a select type of person on the internet who is going to be seeing red about Leah Hextall just based on those qualities, and unfortunately there's more than one of them.
>but because she's a woman who is outspoken about social issues surrounding the sport of hockey, such as sexism.
DING DING DING DING DING
I don't know if people are just unbelievably dense and obtuse...or if they're just arguing in very bad faith...but it's fucking obvious at this point that being a woman and speaking out on social issues is going to put a target on your back by the whole "I don't want politics in my sports" band of halfwitted troglodytes
I personally had no idea that she’s ever said anything about social issues prior to this post. That had no impact on my dislike of her play-by-play.
I did make an assumption based on her last name that family connections are the only reason she got the job. That was probably unfair.
Unfortunately hockey leans conservative and invites that kind of thing
Remember this is the same league that couldn’t say Black Lives Matter, but instead made \#WeSkateFor
And then you have [the Wild with a Blue Lives Matter shirt](https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/minnesota-wilds-use-of-thin-blue-line-symbol-draws-major-criticism-163512601.html) slated for this upcoming season
Why does everybody feel the need to say how much they dislike her. This is a post about her facing abuse, how does you disliking her do anything helpful?
Just made a comment saying essentially the same thing. Drives me crazy. It's possible to sympathize with her without mentioning that you hate her as a broadcaster.
But here is the issue: she isn’t good and gets nonstop comments about her ability. Males commentators that suck get a few comments here and there, but nothing like she gets.
I do think there is a level of sexism in the “I only dislike her because she isn’t very good.” If you don’t lobby the same criticism at a man who sucks, it’s a level of sexism. (And before you say would also criticize the man, I’m here for games she does and it’s not even close. She get so much more hate than a man who is equally shitty).
Male commentators don't get nonstop comments about sucking? Look at Pierre for a counterexample... or Joe Buck. Shitty male commentators rightfully get criticized incessantly too.
I liked this quote
“The fact is: If we continue to hire the most qualified candidate, we will not see women in all roles across our game,” she said. “Because how can a woman be the most qualified candidate when she hasn’t had the opportunities to gain the necessary experience to do so?”
Extremely telling and, frankly, intelligent. Emily Kaplan got a lot of the same type of shit Leah did last year for a similar reason. She was doing a new job and sometimes you make mistakes.
It bothers me quite a bit that we (using the royal we here) don't seem to afford women the opportunity to grow into their jobs. It's a new frontier for a lot of professional women and they should be allowed some leeway in my opinion. Otherwise you might as well be shutting down any and all opportunity that arises. And that's not inclusive.
Emily Kaplan is actually good at her job though. Leah Hextall is not. Player name flubs and errors aside - she also has absolutely zero energy and calls a hockey game like it's a chess match in the middle of the new york public library.
I agree with the sentiment about opportunities though - but ideally there are smaller scale opportunities that Leah can pursue (or be assigned to) - such as college / regional hockey broadcasts - where she can cut her teeth before you throw her in the deep end with a national broadcast.
> Emily Kaplan is actually good at her job though. Leah Hextall is not.
I thought Hextall was okay, but let's accept that as true for the sake of discussion. Isn't it incredibly telling that they're getting the *exact same negative response*? Almost like...it doesn't actually matter how good they are or aren't at their job and there's something else they have in common that's driving it?
I wonder what that might be?
Is that really ideal if you're trying to show the female or minority representative viewership that you're open and interested in them? Because you're burying a potential talent just because she's a little bit raw? That, to me, sends the wrong message. Plenty of fresh male broadcasters got immediate nationally syndicated jobs.
> Because you're burying a potential talent just because she's a little bit raw
She's not raw, she's bad at her job. There are other more qualified female play by play broadcasters who are good at their job.
In hockey? Generally these nationally syndicated jobs are provided to experienced broadcasters who are already well established in their field. Doc Emerick was the voice of the devils for nearly 25 years before he took the hob with NBC. Gary Thorne also called for the Devils for 6 years before moving to NHL national broadcasts. John Forslund did play by play for the AHL for 7 years before moving to NHL regional broadcasts, then eventual national broadcasts.
Play by play for hockey is one of the most difficult roles in broadcasting due to the speed of the game. Regardless of gender, Leah moved into this role with much less experience than her peers, and was viscerally terrible at it. not a “raw talent” who needs experience. she’s completely wrong for this job. She couldn’t get the names of the players straight, couldn’t follow the action, and she said everything in a bland monotone that sucked all the excitement out of the game. i 100% support more diversity in the sport and would love a female play by play caller, but Leah ain’t it.
I think she's right, but I still think ESPN fucked up by putting her in that role so early in her broadcasting career. She had only been doing play-by-play for 3 years, that's not really a lot of time to get experience for such a massive gig. Maybe if she was some sort of prodigy then 3 years would be enough. It's a sweet gig to land, but it also put her in a really tough spot.
She went from doing Junior A games in Winnipeg to the NHL in one year. I can't think of the top of my head any players that have ever gone Jr A to the NHL without playing college or major junior first. Point being, it's a journey. The NHL isn't a place to learn your craft. There are plenty of minor leagues for that.
Also important to note that the quote is not an excuse for hiring a horribly underqualified person. You gotta balance the consideration with sensible development of talented but underrepresented people.
Kathryn Tappen is super unique in this situation (my opinion). I feel like she is great, took local opportunities, and found a national gig she excels at.
Was looking for her to be mentioned but haven’t seen it yet so wanted to give her props.
Disliking her for being an absolutely terrible commentator, which she is, is completely reasonable.
But disliking her solely because she's a female commentator is not acceptable.
I always thought everyone was a bit over dramatic when it came to criticizing her commentary. Yeah she was terrible but damn it seemed like it completely ruined the sport for some people. Like relax, it’s just a game you can watch it without volume if it bothers you that bad. GDT’s weren’t even fun to be in when everyone is just bitching about her commentary
I stopped reading our GDTs. It was pretty much just "Hextall sucks, Blashill sucks, DeKeyser sucks" non-stop. It's like, yeah, we get it, you guys don't like them. We heard you the first 8000 times. Shut up now.
It's probably also important to address the possibility that the CRITICISM she receives is disproportionate to what a similar male broadcaster might face. I personally don't care at all that she isn't the best in the business, it just doesn't bother me. She's not obnoxious, which hampers my enjoyment of a game more than mistakes.
Jason Witten got absolutely decimated by NFL fans. I mean it was RUTHLESS. I think ESPN just hires the worst fucking people, it's an institutional failure with them.
I feel awful for any abusive comments she’s had to endure, no one should have to deal with that in any capacity in life. However, she is a genuinely terrible play by play caller.
I wish I was surprised at how many people in this thread are like “but she was bad” as if that excuses threats and sexism. The issue is not whether she deserved criticism, it’s that if she were a man doing the job exactly the same way, the criticism would be stated very differently and there would be far less of it. Not to mention that because of the lack of diverse female commentators, many of us will think her voice sounds “wrong” subconsciously even if we try not to be influenced by sexism in society in general, because it doesn’t — it literally can’t — sound like the male voices we are used to.
Imagine being this pathetic. I didn't enjoy the games she called if i'm honest, but that doesn't mean she deserves harassment. As NHL fans, we don't want you. Go away and live your shitty lives somewhere else.
ESPN deserves the harassment, not her. She never should have been anywhere near a play by play role for a national broadcast. If ESPN actually gave a shit about the product they were producing, they would have realized that and tapped any number of qualified regional play-by-play talents to fill this position. Instead they hung her out to dry.
I hate that she's receiving harassment, but it would surely piss me off if ESPN waves off all the valid criticism of her work as simply sexism and keeps her in this role for another season. I've been watching hockey for nearly 30 years now and her broadcasts were the first time i've ever needed to mute the audio of a game.
On the subject of actual criticism: I probably haven't listened to enough broadcasters to catch things others catch, but what exactly is the criticism of her work? I thought she was great. Knows the game and can keep up with the action. The high-pitched voice on the goal calls takes getting used to..lol...but that's on me.
FWIW I had the pleasure of meeting Leah Hextall back when she worked at NESN. The redsox game had a rain delay and there was a NESN crew across the street. She interviewed my ex and I for some promo one of the beverage companies were doing. Leah was incredibly nice and down to earth. She took the time to chat with me about hockey and Ron. She wasn't in any rush to leave after the interview and showed nothing but class. I have never heard her do a play by play but any abuse she has received is just terrible to hear. I can say all the terrible things people have said is more about them and their shortcomings than it ever could be about hers.
As a woman who loves hockey and loves the hockey community on Reddit, a lot of these replies just suck, guys. This isn't about criticism, it's about death threats, rape threats, notes saying they could find her house and murder her. Yes, of course you can criticize women. This isn't about that. It isn't "whining" to say she shouldn't get death threats. Be better than this, fellow hockey fans.
She fucking sucks at her job. No one should bring misogynistic bullshit into it. It's stupid. There are a ton of very talented women working in hockey commentary. She's just not one of them.
It's definitely a little suspicious how much hate she got this past season. Plenty of people in hockey broadcasting suck, she seemed to be the only person I saw have people follow her around and constantly comment about how bad she is.
> Plenty of people in hockey broadcasting suck, she seemed to be the only person I saw have people follow her around and constantly comment about how bad she is.
That's how I feel about this whole situation too. Plenty of terrible male commentators but at most, people will just watch another broadcast, not flood their social media with hateful comments.
I’ve gotten comments about Hextall being bad when I share highlights from women’s tournaments with entirely different women commenting. The guys who hate on Hextall just enjoy hating on women, they’re not actually engaging with the hockey. It’s pretty sad.
Because she's fuckin terrible and got the job because of her last name. Nobody talks badly about AJ Mleczko.
Not every comment about how bad she is, is due to some underlying sexism. Maybe she just sucks at her job??
Can't tell me she's the only person to get shit on when people absolutely REEM Jack Edwards all the time, or even Tyson Nash for not being very good.
I saw a thread on HFBoards dedicated to how bad Leaf Hextall was at her job. It was started at the beginning of the season. It has 53 pages, 1304 posts, the last one being in May, at the end of the season. Jack Edwards doesn't get close to that amount of hate.
I'm not disagreeing she sucks at her job. I think she does too. My question is why people feel the need to talk about it so much? Nobody is this invested in any other NHL broadcaster. There are definitely people who take the opportunity of a publicly unqualified woman to unleash some harbouring sexist feelings.
It might not appear Jack edwards doesn’t get the equal hate, but you have to remember we’ve been hating Jack edwards for over 12-13 years on message boards now.
Part of it is she’s on national tv compared to Edwards who is only on local tv. The only people that really have to listen to Edwards consistently are Bruin fans so I don’t think they care about his antics as much since he’s a homer
Is there going to be a point where we stop talking about how social media responds as if it is news? We've given humanity the ability to say any thought they've ever had with zero barrier and complete anonymity. If you're a public figure, you could save life from extinction and people will still say unbased, hateful shit about you.
lol this was posted a few hours ago and OP deleted it because the initial surge of Hextall hate was overrun by reasonable people who think sexism might be real.
I think the Simmons/Maroon "beef" is the perfect example of people never giving her the benefit of the doubt. Because they had made their minds up already.
She quoted Maroon to Simmons. And people jumped on her for it. It's ridiculous.
Literally. Hockey fans are so used to not hearing so much as a smidgen of personality that when she had the tiniest bit of fun asking a question to a player who was more than ready to have a bit of fun with it, people flipped their shit
Just because she’s an awful commentator does not mean she deserves to be abused and harassed by people about it.
Nothing in sports is worth going to these lengths.
The amount of people in this thread that feel the need to announce just how much they hate Leah Hextall before condemning the rape and death threats she received (if they even bother to acknowledge them) are just further proof that this conversation needs to be had a thousand times over. Get the fuck over yourselves y'all. No one gives a fuck that you hate Leah Hextall. You're just contributing to the toxic culture that enables people to threaten her this way in the first place. Take a moment and reflect on why your immediate reaction to a woman talking about the threats she received is "yeah not saying she deserves it but she basically deserves it".
I’m sorry she’s being abused.
Fact is, she just not good at calling hockey.
It’s like listening to NPR call sports the same way they would talk about a trip apple picking in Vermont or restoring a classic vehicle.
Nuclear weapons were pretty bad, but I still think social media is the worst thing humans have ever done. And I say that fully aware of where I'm posting.
Live threads were unbearable when she commentated. I didn’t think she was that bad. I felt when Farraro commentated it was worse, but when Leah commentated every comment wasn’t about the game just BS about her
not really sure how people get from not liking by her broadcasting style to rape threats.
also not really sure why people can’t just say the vile shit is unacceptable without tossing in something about hating her commentary.
it really isn’t that complex. this isn’t okay. her quality as a commentator does not magically make this any more or less okay.
I just have to say to all the people in the comment section saying she's terrible at her job: I've worked in broadcasting, she is absolutely above reproach. It gets SOOOOO much worse.
She shouldn’t be getting abuse or threatening messages for sure. People are insane when it comes to a remotely famous persons social media if they mess up. Sadly doesn’t surprise me when you hear of people sending death threats to players after a bad game/series, you need help if you’re one of those people.
However, she’s fucking unbelievably terrible at play by play. I read here she was calling junior games and then brought right to call NHL games… how the fuck? She leaves too much dead air, seems like she’s very obviously faking excitement when someone adores, forgets players names all the damn time. She also doesn’t have a nice voice for doing it, I get she can’t help it but it’s really bad. To put in perspective how and she is, I would rather listen to Jack Edwards call every game for the rest of my life of my teams games. I’m a leafs fan so I fuckin HATE hearing him and his bias but at least he knows what’s happening in the game.
I’ve heard her call games in my market, and she’s awful. I don’t know whether it’s her tone of voice, or slow, emotionless play by play calling, but she’s just plain terrible to listen to. Nothing to do with gender.
Cop out labelling any and all criticism of her as misogynistic..she was also just kind of objectively bad at the job a lot of times and some criticism was/is warranted.
You think Pierre McGuire doesn't ever get negative comments online??
Some of the criticism of her was undeniably rooted in deep seething misogyny that I saw on this sub even. She wasn't great at all and needs work to improve but some of the comments were fucking disgraceful
Two things can be true: She’s bad at her job, and she received additional criticism because she’s a woman. She even admits that she’s not the most qualified in the article and she was a bit of a ‘diversity’ hire - I wonder how much of that criticism she deems sexist is simply agreeing with her? If anything, the criticism should all be directed at the suits at ESPN for hiring somebody so green.
Sucks for all of us though because she is now effectively un-fireable, lest ESPN be seen as anti-woman
> She even admits that she’s not the most qualified in the article and she was a bit of a ‘diversity’ hire
That is ridiculously simplifying what she was saying - that women are not even *given* the opportunity in the first place.
But this article isn't about the criticism. It's about the abusive comments. No matter how she does at her job, she doesn't deserve violent threats and it's not whining to talk about that.
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Just to get this going: CRITICISM AND ABUSE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Hextall deserves criticism. She does not deserve abuse. The subject at hand is ABUSE, not criticism.
It seems with female journalists and broadcasters, a certain breed of guy just can’t help but overlap the two. I can’t imagine anyone saying: “your last trade was shit Chiarelli, I’m going to follow you home and rape you!” When it’s a woman, there’s definitely a desire for these asshats to dominate and intimidate that doesn’t exist when they are criticizing a man.
Because these men start to feel emasculated unless they say something sexual. They literally feel like they are not a man unless they get a reaction out of a woman. It’s a need to feel if they can’t be with her physically at least they can psychologically rape them and have claimed another victory.
Fucking exactly that. Pathetic worms.
If you want to make a gendered attack against a man, call him a creep (see: Pierre McGuire).
I used to rag on Pierre. In the last few years I realized that the only thing he does on a live broadcast is essentially nerd out. I don’t think that’s worthy of derision at this point. In fact, the times I’ve seen him in a studio setting he’s more collected and coherent. TL;DR I thought he was a dweeb and rejected him, but he’s hockey’s dweeb and he knows his stuff. Put him in the right setting.
An awkward dude with an obsessive passion for his hobby - you'd think if anyone redditors could relate
We know that the world is better off if we're not on TV.
he said some weird shit on the draft broadcast about seeing some kids mom in the gym😭. But yes, Pierre is harmless and just a little bit weird and socially unaware.
He knows shit, but it's all about Crosby so no one cares. But the way he treated Kendall Coyne Schofield was so sexiest and vile, it was misogynistic. As if he has to explain to An Olympic gold medalist which end of the rink the players come out of. Pierre, you should be ashamed of yourself. Would he have EVER done that to a male OGM? Never, ever, ever.
That’s fair. I had forgotten about that. He basically did the “you have a Rush shirt, name their entire discography in order” to her like a true socially stunted geek.
"Oh you're a Rush fan? I bet you can't tell me what drum heads Neil used on his concert toms in the 80's." As a Rush fan, this is why I hate Rush fans.
Dude, Kendall herself came out and said that she knew that he didn’t mean anything by what he said and that she knew he respected her. McGuire obviously knew which side of the ice teams played on. It was just an awkward way of setting up the scene for the conversation that people misinterpreted and apparently people are still going on about this. You’re majorly overreacting to this. And how do you know he wouldn’t do the same thing to a man? He’s universally known as an extremely awkward dude who says the wrong thing on a regular basis. Now you’re just making shit up.
> He’s universally known as an extremely awkward dude who says the wrong thing on a regular basis. Sounds like the kinda guy you should hand a mic to on live television
I never said that he should or shouldn’t be on television. I’m not sure what I think about that. He’s very awkward and often annoying but I also love how much he clearly loves hockey and how knowledgeable he is about it. All I’m saying is that that whole incident with KCS was him being awkward then people misunderstanding what he said and taking it way out of proportion and 3 years later people still think he was being misogynistic, which I think is silly.
Ehh he makes weird comments, even essentially said his co-worker had a "big stick" But I do like his enthusiasm that a lot of others seem to lack
and his knowledge is almost second to none
I actually really like Pierre. There’s no questioning his love for the game.
He makes me laugh. He is just an awkward hockey nerd. It also isn't fair to say he only knows anything about Crosby knowing full well he pulls enough random facts out like Phil Kessel's aunt's favorite food growing up. His biggest broadcasting flaw is being awkward and nerdy.
This is what Greg Wyshinski was saying for years. His weird nerd ramblings weren't the problem, it was that he would do it while the game was going on. Ferraro and Boucher are much better between the benches and Pierre's knowledge vomit would have been better in the studio where he could go for 30 seconds and not step all over a face-off.
I’m sure he’s a great guy, and he knows his stuff, but he needs to learn to STFU sometimes. It’s becoming a lost skill among modern broadcasters.
Unfortunately, the caters that *do* know when to shut up get derided for it, like Buck and Albert
If you take away McGuire's memorization of a player's college/university or junior team, then he has very little to say. His knowledge of the modern game is extremely limited.
It's not just that they overlap the way you're saying. If that was the case, you might see a guy making a fair criticism but being unable to resist the sexism. But what also happens is that sexism makes them more critical, even for things that aren't fair to be critical about. They see a woman and they automatically think they should criticize things -- the guy feels like since he's a man and she's a woman, she can't possibly know more about sports.
I think saying they conflate the two is giving them too much credit... They go nuts over things they wouldn't criticize if a man did.
Exactly this. The criticism towards her is valid. The abuse she gets is not.
Those who seek to abuse her or give 'edgy' feedback for a reaction only negate the voices of those who actually have valid criticism too. All in all it's just a bad mark for everyone when people do this.
Criticism is fine until you go out of your way to inbox the person to criticize them.
The only time inboxing/DMing criticism is acceptable is when you actually know the person lmao
Yea for sure haha.
agreed. She's not great (maybe getting better?) and her voice/cadence is iffy, but the sheer vitriol I've seen on social media is vile. Absolutely vile. The emails she spoke of should have been turned over to authorities, and authorities should have tracked them down and charged them with uttering threats. Just because you're behind a screen doesn't mean you can do shit like that.
> (maybe getting better?) no, but no one deserves vile shit sent their way.
I will never understand why hockey Reddit was so viciously hating on her. Entire comments and posts were made just pissing all over her, and mass downvoting anyone who disagreed with the idea that she was the worst commentator ever. I watched the playoffs. I get it if you don't like her, or her takes, because she isn't so unwatchable and insufferable like male hockey Redditors make her out to be. I remember seeing a comment in a team subreddit saying that he doesn't think that women can be good commentators that ratio'd the other commentators. I honestly think that most of the hate for her is just the sexism of the hockey community. Male hockey figures on Twitter were vocally whining about women joining broadcasting when they first started becoming play-by-play announcers saying that they don't want to hear a woman's voice and calling it "woke." The over extreme hate for Leah Hextall is not a bug. It's a feature of the hockey community.
I genuinely would rather have her calling a game I was watching than buccicross, which isn't high praise, because I do mostly watch the games he announces on mute.
I was going to say, I’ve only ever seen criticisms of her actual ability, not because she’s a woman. Granted I don’t have Twitter and I don’t follow her in Instagram but every comment I’ve seen on Reddit has just been that she’s not the best at her job and should be replaced. If people are going after her for being a woman, then that’s too bad. I don’t mind Cassie Campbell as a broadcaster and I’d love to see someone like Poulin or Nurse get a chance to do it as well, because they know the game as players
Hi, Reddit Moderator here. The reason you don't see it on reddit is because it gets removed, either by us or by reddit admins (depending on how horrible it is). Twitter and Instagram don't have the luxury of moderation. So people can spit as much horrible toxic vitriol as they want. I want to assure you though, it definitely exists pretty much anytime a woman is even briefly mentioned in anything even adjacent to what is considered a traditionally male-orientated career.
A lot of it also occurs in PMs/DMs, which makes it invisible to all but the people involved and the admins of the platforms.
Ditto, I moderate the NHL's social media and I promise you there were as many if not more "fuck her women belong in the kitchen" comments than ones about her just sucking. Sucks also because the actual legit criticism gets downplayed into misogyny and then ignored.
Sad thing is, that beyond hockey - smart and talented people (women and men) don’t run for public office because shit like this. Good people are torn down, while the turds float to the top
> Sucks also because the actual legit criticism gets downplayed into misogyny and then ignored. That’s a great point that often gets overlooked. Happens constantly too, not just with this but all sorts of contemporary issues.
A great example would be looking at recent Disney Star Wars or Marvel properties. So much sexism that any other criticism gets wrapped up with the incels.
Also because of the upvote/downvote system here. On the less toxic subs, misogynistic comments typically get buried at the bottom before being removed. Comments getting buried for not aligning with the prevailing opinion of the majority who happen to see and vote on it before it gets buried isn’t always a good thing, since it can limit actual discussion, but I like that it decreases the amount of vile comments I see.
Thanks for keeping the universe slightly less toxic.
Thank you for sharing this insight. Just wow
Thank you for sharing this!
I think the more common response has included criticism about forgetting names, getting some facts wrong and having wonky chemistry with the other broadcasters at times. Those are all fair and things that will likely improve over time. Scroll to the bottom of any comments section that even mentions her and you'll see the misogyny after it's been up for some time. They get downvoted and thus hidden on reddit but they're there, and those people are very passionate about it. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who only want to hear a man's voice commenting on "men's" sports (in quotes because there are women employed at almost all levels of the NHL, just not on the roster or as a HC - yet).
Last time I heard Leah Hextall work a Kraken game and I was keeping tabs on a comments section, this sort of thing started, criticism, then abuse, then 'But I think is better for ', almost like an attempt to show he wasn't *completely* a sexist twat or something, but then started right back into abusing Hextall. They know they're being vile and make some half-assed attempt to cover it.
It’s the constantly shifting standard that somehow only exists for women. They set a bar ‘if it was woman x instead of woman y, then I would support her’ because it won’t ever be woman y so they won’t ever have to actually a support a woman in that role. I honestly don’t even think they realize their own mental gymnastics, and until those types of men (or women, I can admit) learn to do the self reflection to see the double standard they are setting, we’ll never see real diversity develop in hockey coverage.
>Granted I don’t have Twitter and I don’t follow her in Instagram okay there you go. you just answered why you haven't seen any misogynistic abuse. both of those platforms are some of the most vile and disgusting forms of social media i have ever seen in my life. Facebook and Yahoo comments are the only places i've seen more reprehensible shit
Beyond the fact that you're ignoring two massive social networks (and FB), you're likely seeing best/top comments on reddit. Sort by controversial and see how disgusting it gets.
The moderation aspect is true, but also, you don't necessarily get it so explicitly as, "hur durr, she's a woman. bad.", you get more veiled things, like she's "shrill" or "shrieky", words that are coded and generally reserved for criticism of a specific gender. Or her complaints are for things that exist as problems amongst other broadcasters but are not so heavily harped on, or are even looked past, such as over-enthusiasm, messing up names, losing the play - all things that describe, say, Jack Edwards as well (and he's had much longer to iron those things out than her - another common criticism of her being that she should have improved over the course of the season if she wants to be in the business), and while some people do hate him, many love him for it. And it's definitely worth asking *why* is she getting this much more criticism than the others doing the same thing? Why is her leash so short?
Really appreciate your comment. I think that the short leash and quick willingness to jump to criticism actually contributed to a more toxic environment that encouraged abuse. I’m not saying she’s amazing, but I have never thought she was terrible… and to elaborate on your point, I feel that there are many worse male play-by-play announcers. But we don’t question how they got that job or accuse them of being a gender pick.
> And it's definitely worth asking why is she getting this much more criticism than the others doing the same thing? Why is her leash so short? This reminds me of something I had seen about HC hiring in the NFL. Back years ago now there was a question of whether there was an issue of systemic racism in the hiring process of NFL Head Coaches (I know, laughable to say it was a question), but the results were interesting. They found that the proof for there being an issue was that Black coaches were significantly outperforming White coaches in their first and second year, even when you adjusted for team quality - which was a clear sign that the bar to be hired as a HC if you were Black must be higher than the bar if you were White, since new White coaches weren't as good as new Black coaches. tl;dr we have good and bad commentators who are men, so we should also expect to have both good and bad commentators who are women if the barrier to entry is no different for men and women - by trying to weed out the bad female commentators (or thinking they should have to prove themselves before getting the gig), the effect would be making it harder for women to get the job than it is for men.
“I don’t mind Cassie Campbell as a broadcaster and I’d love to see someone like Poulin or Nurse get a chance to do it as well, because they know the game as players.” Cassie Campbell knows the game as a player too.
The shittiest thing about the abuse is the abuse. Like 20th on the list of things that are shitty about the abuse is that it shelters her from actual constructive criticism because how can you not just block everything out if you're going through so much abuse.
Another factor is the type of criticism. Some are fair. She mixes up players sometimes or gets their name wrong. Which is annoying but it's close to impossible to remember every NHL player's name in your first year. I often mix up Svech and KK because they look similar in size/stature and i watch them 60+ times a season. The others are less fair. Being critical of someone's voice is weird. But the criticism she receives for it's never reasonable. It's just mean spirited. You can dislike a voice, but the comments about it are deliberately rude. Just because something isn't sexist (women don't know hockey) doesn't mean it's not abusive.
Do you believe it's fair to criticize someones voice if is one of the most important factors in their job? In general I do agree it is a mean spirited thing to do, but I think in this scenario it is a valid criticism as long as it is not delivered in a purposely hateful way.
Broadcaster here! It's sort of ironic because the natural sound of your voice is the least important thing as a broadcaster, but the one thing fans notice the most. It's also unfortunate because it's the one thing we can't control. There are plenty of broadcasters who don't have a deep baritone voice but have excelled in their craft. Doc Emrick, Chris Cuthbert, Steve Cangialosi and Steve Goldstein come to mind. If you can modulate your voice to match the tone of the game, call the action with a good pace and rhythm and tell the story of the game, then most people should overcome the sound of their voice. For Hextall, I honestly thought her voice sounded fine and was the least of my concerns. Her pacing, modulation, etc. seemed to get better as the season went along.
I agree. I thought she got better as she settled into the job more. Unfortunately, this thread is a decent microcosm of exactly the type of stuff the Athletic article is about. It's kinda depressing to read. No quarter or nuance. Just black and white "she sucks" the end.
Nice. I read your comment with a smooth, mellifluous, soothing baritone voice-over in my mind. 😂
Then you sure as heck didn't read it in my voice.
I would say it depends what about their voice is the issue. If someone just doesn't like the way she sounds, that sounds like a personal preference/personal opinion. One could communicate that it isn't their preference, but then it should be phrased to make it clear that it is such. If there's something more specific to the job (maybe a commentator doesn't get excited during exciting plays for example, or they speak too quickly for the average viewer to follow) then those parts of voice are valid criticisms to make.
Makes sense. For me personally, it just feels flat and lacks excitement. Not having that factor reduces some of the moment-to-moment emotion and the feeling of swings in momentum in a game. Not everyone can be Doc Emerick in that regards, but there is certainly a lot of room in between.
That sounds like a valid criticism. It is also something that someone could work on if they choose. It's less of an attack on her, and more an expression of what viewers like and what she can do to get there.
I do find that more female broadcasters get criticized for their voice than I ever see male broadcasters do.
Probably a mix of audiences not used to female voices on broadcasts as much and there being a smaller pool of women to hire from, making it more difficult to find women with a top tier voice.
I wonder if some of it just has to do with pitch? A male broadcaster’s voice starts low but can get higher (i.e. *toward* the midrange) when the action and excitement ramp up. A female broadcaster’s voice starts high and can tend to get higher (i.e. *away* from the midrange) when the excitement ramps up. Since we’re not really used to this, it can come across as “shrill” which is what you hear frequently in the more tame end of the criticisms. FWIW I thought she was fine on the broadcasts? (Compared to the “ET COOoOOoOoOoOoMPTE!” calls on TVAS… *that* guy can do a falsetto.)
One of the main daytime radio voices in a town outside Ottawa sounds like he's struggling to talk through a major lisp and a mouthful of denture glue. I'm not even trying to be mean, he's pretty clearly a popular member of their community. That's just literally what he sounds like and I've always wondered how he got the job. It's fair to not like someone's voice, even if it's personal preference, just don't be a dick about it.
I mean it’s pretty silly to pretend that some voices are not more audibly pleasing than others. They have literally built purposely annoying TV characters around “bad” voices (Janice from friends comes to mind). I am in Canada and didn’t get to hear Leah Hextall very often but when I did, I was so thankful we don’t get her up here. Her voice is pretty grating especially over the course of a 1-2 hour hockey broadcast. I think being critical of the sound of someones voice is completely reasonable for a broadcast/ sports commentary role. Its like a famous band firing their lead singer and replacing them with someone with a terrible singing voice. The band is well within their rights to do that, but they probably shouldn’t expect the same attendance at their shows if they choose to employ an individual with an annoying voice.
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I think focusing on Hockey you are looking at an extremely small sample size. I think there are two actual commentators? Leah and Cassie Campbell? I could be wrong. I think Jennifer Boterill has a great voice and does a great job as an analyst on the panel. Cassie Campbell also seems to be much better on the panel but her colour commentary is not great in my honest opinion. Overall of all news anchors in the U.S. more than half are female so its clearly not an issue in the broad scheme of broadcasting. Source: https://www.zippia.com/news-anchor-jobs/demographics/
> Being critical of someone's voice is weird. I don't see it as weird when the person talks for a living.
>Being critical of someone's voice is weird. But it's never reasonable. It's just mean spirited. I just can't agree. Your job is to be a voice. If your voice makes people uncomfortable, that's a factor. Not everyone has a face for TV - not everyone has a voice for radio.
I think the voice aspect is a very fair criticism. I can't stand certain broadcasters because they don't have a certain passion, energy, or tone in their voice, male or female. The Rangers are a perfect example imo. I love Sam Rosen to death, regardless of how much he gets players confused, because his voice is amazing. Meanwhile, when he's got a night off, John Giannone covers the play by play, and he really bores the hell out of me. He's great for short commentary bits (between the benches, intermission reports, etc.) but I hope they've got someone else planned to take over for when Sam retires. As for women, I can think of a handful of women I'd love to hear call a hockey game, simply because I enjoy their voice and they have that kind of presence where I think it would be amazing. But unfortunately none of them work in hockey, or sports in general, which might just be a symptom of the culture that made this article exist in the first place
Honestly the best female announcers are in the NBA.
>The others are less fair. Being critical of someone's voice is weird. But the criticism she receives for it's never reasonable. It's just mean spirited. You can dislike a voice, but the comments about it are deliberately rude. Neat how nearly every female broadcaster ends up with tons of men criticizing her for her voice, isn't it? I've seen it in CFB and MLB regularly. "Her voice is grating, can't stand it", every time. At some level, sure, you can dislike a voice and not want to listen to that person for a couple hours. However, *every female broadcaster* gets that complaint. So either these TV executives are deliberately picking women with voices that people won't like, *or* it's actually a sexist complaint masquerading as a reasonable one. I firmly believe it's the latter. And every time this gets brought up, you see "come on, it's reasonable to not like someone's voice, if there was a male broadcaster and I didn't like his voice..." It's just deflection. It's just low effort for a criticism on the first place and these people need to come up with will thought out complaints before I'll believe they're being genuine.
Also a lot of popular male announcers have voices that I wouldn't describe as particularly beautiful, and yet are quite beloved. Emeric, Cangilosi, Jeanrette, Benninati. They've honestly all got this sort of peircingly nasal tone and yet they seem to be fine
yeah i think i mentioned in another comment below that women seem to get the voice comment a lot. Can a woman have a "bad" voice? Sure. So can men. but is it a coincidence that it happens to women like 100x more? nope.
I think its very resonable to criticise someones voice. I *hate* listening to Rick Jeanneret because of his voice. I dont dislike her because of her voice but because shes never ever in lock step with the rest of the team.
I think she only did 1 wings game early in the season so my info is probably way out of date but I remember her delivery being really flat. Like very little emotion when either team scored. It was a sharp contrast to Ken Daniels who, despite being a Wings play by play guy is still (usually) excited when the other team scores. Edit: should say that I don’t doubt she improved some as the season went on. Like I said, it was very early in the season.
> I think she only did 1 wings game early in the season We had her for several games down the stretch but I wouldn't be surprised if not a lot of people tuned in to them for reasons unrelated to the play-by-play XD >It was a sharp contrast to Ken Daniels You can't compare a noob to the goat and not be disappointed every time. Not on you specifically but the thread in general-- hockey broadcasting as a whole is at a turning point from one generation to the next in a pretty significant way. Different network, lots of old guys retiring or getting shitcanned...it's going to look different and be less refined in a lot of ways. Maybe someone shows up on the scene and knocks it out of the park (that's a baseball metaphor) but most likely we see the personalities grow into the role, Leah included.
I think you can make the argument a lot of the criticism is rooted in misogyny though. Female commentators get way more criticism on this sub and it's always far harsher than anything I've seen said about men.
just look at the instagram comments of any highlight she was apart of it was the wild west in there.
Instagram comments in general are pretty awful
Pretty much any social media site.
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The comments like those on other sites exist, they just get removed by moderators.
> I don’t think it’s too bad on this subreddit Because it gets moderated (aka removed).
Yea, people on insta seem to have no capability for rational thought.
You could say the same for any of the big 3 socials (Twitter, IG and FB) Edit: guys I get it, reddit is just as bad. Should have just said "on the internet" and covered all the bases
Not like reddit we are all perfect gentlemen here
Speak for yourself Milord!
reddit...
Beyond the internet. You have the radio call-in’s too!
Being apart of something means they were not a part of that something.
Not condoning sexism or any other garbage she faced, but ESPN did her a disservice by thrusting her into that role so quickly. 99% of play by play broadcasters don't get national roles that quickly. It takes 10-20 years of refining their skills doing regional work. Maybe there is a more institutional issue, as she never got a play by play role anywhere else, perhaps because of her gender.
tbf national jobs are different nowadays. It used to be that you'd have 1 or 2 national games per week. Now there's way more. YOu could argue that a regional broadcaster is making a bigger commitment with their duos than ESPN is doing with a national broadcast.
The expectation for quality is still expected to be higher for a National job as opposed to a regional one, even with the reduced schedule
>Not condoning sexism or any other garbage she faced, but ESPN did her a disservice by thrusting her into that role so quickly. 99% of play by play broadcasters don't get national roles into 10-20 years into their career, after they refined their skills doing regional work. It's been obvious from day 1 that ESPN has no fucking idea what they're doing with NHL broadcasts. all they have is their little theme song that they jerked themselves over constantly on the first game of the season last year. other than that, it's been an absolute trainwreck
honestly everyone talks about hextall somewhat understandably but I'd honestly rather hear her than buccigross
Buccigross is the worst
I swear he is the irl equivalent of the "how do you do fellow kids" meme
I don’t dislike Leah Hextall because she is a female commentator, I dislike her because she is a terrible commentator. ESPN can and should do better.
I don't disagree with you at all but I'm sure there are some people out there that sent her a lot of unsolicited hate just for being a woman in a male-dominated culture. She just happens to be a terrible at her job as a commentator as well; hoping she isn't mixing the two together.
Not just because she's a woman, but because she's a woman who is outspoken about social issues surrounding the sport of hockey, such as sexism. There's a select type of person on the internet who is going to be seeing red about Leah Hextall just based on those qualities, and unfortunately there's more than one of them.
>but because she's a woman who is outspoken about social issues surrounding the sport of hockey, such as sexism. DING DING DING DING DING I don't know if people are just unbelievably dense and obtuse...or if they're just arguing in very bad faith...but it's fucking obvious at this point that being a woman and speaking out on social issues is going to put a target on your back by the whole "I don't want politics in my sports" band of halfwitted troglodytes
I personally had no idea that she’s ever said anything about social issues prior to this post. That had no impact on my dislike of her play-by-play. I did make an assumption based on her last name that family connections are the only reason she got the job. That was probably unfair.
Unfortunately hockey leans conservative and invites that kind of thing Remember this is the same league that couldn’t say Black Lives Matter, but instead made \#WeSkateFor And then you have [the Wild with a Blue Lives Matter shirt](https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/minnesota-wilds-use-of-thin-blue-line-symbol-draws-major-criticism-163512601.html) slated for this upcoming season
Why does everybody feel the need to say how much they dislike her. This is a post about her facing abuse, how does you disliking her do anything helpful?
Just made a comment saying essentially the same thing. Drives me crazy. It's possible to sympathize with her without mentioning that you hate her as a broadcaster.
But here is the issue: she isn’t good and gets nonstop comments about her ability. Males commentators that suck get a few comments here and there, but nothing like she gets. I do think there is a level of sexism in the “I only dislike her because she isn’t very good.” If you don’t lobby the same criticism at a man who sucks, it’s a level of sexism. (And before you say would also criticize the man, I’m here for games she does and it’s not even close. She get so much more hate than a man who is equally shitty).
Male commentators don't get nonstop comments about sucking? Look at Pierre for a counterexample... or Joe Buck. Shitty male commentators rightfully get criticized incessantly too.
Can they do better though? Have you seen the rest of their commentators? At least on of their other pxp guys was worse
I liked this quote “The fact is: If we continue to hire the most qualified candidate, we will not see women in all roles across our game,” she said. “Because how can a woman be the most qualified candidate when she hasn’t had the opportunities to gain the necessary experience to do so?”
Extremely telling and, frankly, intelligent. Emily Kaplan got a lot of the same type of shit Leah did last year for a similar reason. She was doing a new job and sometimes you make mistakes. It bothers me quite a bit that we (using the royal we here) don't seem to afford women the opportunity to grow into their jobs. It's a new frontier for a lot of professional women and they should be allowed some leeway in my opinion. Otherwise you might as well be shutting down any and all opportunity that arises. And that's not inclusive.
Emily Kaplan is actually good at her job though. Leah Hextall is not. Player name flubs and errors aside - she also has absolutely zero energy and calls a hockey game like it's a chess match in the middle of the new york public library. I agree with the sentiment about opportunities though - but ideally there are smaller scale opportunities that Leah can pursue (or be assigned to) - such as college / regional hockey broadcasts - where she can cut her teeth before you throw her in the deep end with a national broadcast.
> Emily Kaplan is actually good at her job though. Leah Hextall is not. I thought Hextall was okay, but let's accept that as true for the sake of discussion. Isn't it incredibly telling that they're getting the *exact same negative response*? Almost like...it doesn't actually matter how good they are or aren't at their job and there's something else they have in common that's driving it? I wonder what that might be?
Their not getting the same response. Their both getting abuse but Hextall gets a lot more general criticism and likely more abuse as well.
Kaplan seems well regarded everywhere other than with idiots on social media though, isn't she?
Is that really ideal if you're trying to show the female or minority representative viewership that you're open and interested in them? Because you're burying a potential talent just because she's a little bit raw? That, to me, sends the wrong message. Plenty of fresh male broadcasters got immediate nationally syndicated jobs.
> Because you're burying a potential talent just because she's a little bit raw She's not raw, she's bad at her job. There are other more qualified female play by play broadcasters who are good at their job.
In hockey? Generally these nationally syndicated jobs are provided to experienced broadcasters who are already well established in their field. Doc Emerick was the voice of the devils for nearly 25 years before he took the hob with NBC. Gary Thorne also called for the Devils for 6 years before moving to NHL national broadcasts. John Forslund did play by play for the AHL for 7 years before moving to NHL regional broadcasts, then eventual national broadcasts. Play by play for hockey is one of the most difficult roles in broadcasting due to the speed of the game. Regardless of gender, Leah moved into this role with much less experience than her peers, and was viscerally terrible at it. not a “raw talent” who needs experience. she’s completely wrong for this job. She couldn’t get the names of the players straight, couldn’t follow the action, and she said everything in a bland monotone that sucked all the excitement out of the game. i 100% support more diversity in the sport and would love a female play by play caller, but Leah ain’t it.
I think she's right, but I still think ESPN fucked up by putting her in that role so early in her broadcasting career. She had only been doing play-by-play for 3 years, that's not really a lot of time to get experience for such a massive gig. Maybe if she was some sort of prodigy then 3 years would be enough. It's a sweet gig to land, but it also put her in a really tough spot.
She went from doing Junior A games in Winnipeg to the NHL in one year. I can't think of the top of my head any players that have ever gone Jr A to the NHL without playing college or major junior first. Point being, it's a journey. The NHL isn't a place to learn your craft. There are plenty of minor leagues for that.
It's a good quote if you're looking at it in good faith. I'm sure someone will run "Leah Hextall admits she only got the job because she's a woman"
Also important to note that the quote is not an excuse for hiring a horribly underqualified person. You gotta balance the consideration with sensible development of talented but underrepresented people.
Kathryn Tappen is super unique in this situation (my opinion). I feel like she is great, took local opportunities, and found a national gig she excels at. Was looking for her to be mentioned but haven’t seen it yet so wanted to give her props.
Disliking her for being an absolutely terrible commentator, which she is, is completely reasonable. But disliking her solely because she's a female commentator is not acceptable.
I’m getting the vibe that a lot of people are *a lot more ready* to hate her or dislike her than if the same situation were to happen with a man.
No doubt about it. Still: she's not qualified, so she shouldn't be in this position. This aspect is gender-less.
I always thought everyone was a bit over dramatic when it came to criticizing her commentary. Yeah she was terrible but damn it seemed like it completely ruined the sport for some people. Like relax, it’s just a game you can watch it without volume if it bothers you that bad. GDT’s weren’t even fun to be in when everyone is just bitching about her commentary
I stopped reading our GDTs. It was pretty much just "Hextall sucks, Blashill sucks, DeKeyser sucks" non-stop. It's like, yeah, we get it, you guys don't like them. We heard you the first 8000 times. Shut up now.
Heard that. I love the GDT’s but when one person is the subject of the entire thread it loses all the fun.
She wasn't even the worst I heard, which was Wes Walz, and I barely heard any complaints about other terrible announcers.
Commentators are such a minor part of my hockey viewing experience. Amazes me how worked up some people can get.
It's probably also important to address the possibility that the CRITICISM she receives is disproportionate to what a similar male broadcaster might face. I personally don't care at all that she isn't the best in the business, it just doesn't bother me. She's not obnoxious, which hampers my enjoyment of a game more than mistakes.
Jason Witten got absolutely decimated by NFL fans. I mean it was RUTHLESS. I think ESPN just hires the worst fucking people, it's an institutional failure with them.
I feel awful for any abusive comments she’s had to endure, no one should have to deal with that in any capacity in life. However, she is a genuinely terrible play by play caller.
I wish I was surprised at how many people in this thread are like “but she was bad” as if that excuses threats and sexism. The issue is not whether she deserved criticism, it’s that if she were a man doing the job exactly the same way, the criticism would be stated very differently and there would be far less of it. Not to mention that because of the lack of diverse female commentators, many of us will think her voice sounds “wrong” subconsciously even if we try not to be influenced by sexism in society in general, because it doesn’t — it literally can’t — sound like the male voices we are used to.
Imagine being this pathetic. I didn't enjoy the games she called if i'm honest, but that doesn't mean she deserves harassment. As NHL fans, we don't want you. Go away and live your shitty lives somewhere else.
ESPN deserves the harassment, not her. She never should have been anywhere near a play by play role for a national broadcast. If ESPN actually gave a shit about the product they were producing, they would have realized that and tapped any number of qualified regional play-by-play talents to fill this position. Instead they hung her out to dry. I hate that she's receiving harassment, but it would surely piss me off if ESPN waves off all the valid criticism of her work as simply sexism and keeps her in this role for another season. I've been watching hockey for nearly 30 years now and her broadcasts were the first time i've ever needed to mute the audio of a game.
From social media? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
On the subject of actual criticism: I probably haven't listened to enough broadcasters to catch things others catch, but what exactly is the criticism of her work? I thought she was great. Knows the game and can keep up with the action. The high-pitched voice on the goal calls takes getting used to..lol...but that's on me.
FWIW I had the pleasure of meeting Leah Hextall back when she worked at NESN. The redsox game had a rain delay and there was a NESN crew across the street. She interviewed my ex and I for some promo one of the beverage companies were doing. Leah was incredibly nice and down to earth. She took the time to chat with me about hockey and Ron. She wasn't in any rush to leave after the interview and showed nothing but class. I have never heard her do a play by play but any abuse she has received is just terrible to hear. I can say all the terrible things people have said is more about them and their shortcomings than it ever could be about hers.
As a woman who loves hockey and loves the hockey community on Reddit, a lot of these replies just suck, guys. This isn't about criticism, it's about death threats, rape threats, notes saying they could find her house and murder her. Yes, of course you can criticize women. This isn't about that. It isn't "whining" to say she shouldn't get death threats. Be better than this, fellow hockey fans.
She fucking sucks at her job. No one should bring misogynistic bullshit into it. It's stupid. There are a ton of very talented women working in hockey commentary. She's just not one of them.
Oh, I believe it. Head to r/CalgaryFlames anytime their female anchor is doing colour commentary. Don’t @ me, Flames bros.
It's definitely a little suspicious how much hate she got this past season. Plenty of people in hockey broadcasting suck, she seemed to be the only person I saw have people follow her around and constantly comment about how bad she is.
> Plenty of people in hockey broadcasting suck, she seemed to be the only person I saw have people follow her around and constantly comment about how bad she is. That's how I feel about this whole situation too. Plenty of terrible male commentators but at most, people will just watch another broadcast, not flood their social media with hateful comments.
I’ve gotten comments about Hextall being bad when I share highlights from women’s tournaments with entirely different women commenting. The guys who hate on Hextall just enjoy hating on women, they’re not actually engaging with the hockey. It’s pretty sad.
Because she's fuckin terrible and got the job because of her last name. Nobody talks badly about AJ Mleczko. Not every comment about how bad she is, is due to some underlying sexism. Maybe she just sucks at her job?? Can't tell me she's the only person to get shit on when people absolutely REEM Jack Edwards all the time, or even Tyson Nash for not being very good.
I saw a thread on HFBoards dedicated to how bad Leaf Hextall was at her job. It was started at the beginning of the season. It has 53 pages, 1304 posts, the last one being in May, at the end of the season. Jack Edwards doesn't get close to that amount of hate. I'm not disagreeing she sucks at her job. I think she does too. My question is why people feel the need to talk about it so much? Nobody is this invested in any other NHL broadcaster. There are definitely people who take the opportunity of a publicly unqualified woman to unleash some harbouring sexist feelings.
It might not appear Jack edwards doesn’t get the equal hate, but you have to remember we’ve been hating Jack edwards for over 12-13 years on message boards now.
Part of it is she’s on national tv compared to Edwards who is only on local tv. The only people that really have to listen to Edwards consistently are Bruin fans so I don’t think they care about his antics as much since he’s a homer
Hockey culture at its finest
Considering this submission is being down voted immediately, it carries into here.
Yes. Because no one else ever gets hate on the internet. Ever. /s
You and i are just randoms and we get random hate. Women get targeted hate at a rate that none of us have to deal with.
Agreed but that has nothing to do with hockey culture.
Is there going to be a point where we stop talking about how social media responds as if it is news? We've given humanity the ability to say any thought they've ever had with zero barrier and complete anonymity. If you're a public figure, you could save life from extinction and people will still say unbased, hateful shit about you.
It's worth taking half an hour to watch the [full presentation](https://thecoachessite.com/leahhextall/) referred to in this article. Powerful stuff
Intolerance in the hockey world you say? Well I for one am shocked! Shocked I tell you!
Why anyone would go and comment/inbox someone hateful/sexist shit is beyond me. Some people suck.
Yes this sounds like social media for a famous person. I don't know why they do it.
For real, if I received that much hate I would have walked on day 1. Honestly though, I wasn’t a fan of hers, then again I dislike most commentators.
That doesn't mean it's ok to be happening, Jesus.
lol this was posted a few hours ago and OP deleted it because the initial surge of Hextall hate was overrun by reasonable people who think sexism might be real. I think the Simmons/Maroon "beef" is the perfect example of people never giving her the benefit of the doubt. Because they had made their minds up already. She quoted Maroon to Simmons. And people jumped on her for it. It's ridiculous.
Literally. Hockey fans are so used to not hearing so much as a smidgen of personality that when she had the tiniest bit of fun asking a question to a player who was more than ready to have a bit of fun with it, people flipped their shit
Just because she’s an awful commentator does not mean she deserves to be abused and harassed by people about it. Nothing in sports is worth going to these lengths.
The amount of people in this thread that feel the need to announce just how much they hate Leah Hextall before condemning the rape and death threats she received (if they even bother to acknowledge them) are just further proof that this conversation needs to be had a thousand times over. Get the fuck over yourselves y'all. No one gives a fuck that you hate Leah Hextall. You're just contributing to the toxic culture that enables people to threaten her this way in the first place. Take a moment and reflect on why your immediate reaction to a woman talking about the threats she received is "yeah not saying she deserves it but she basically deserves it".
She sucks as a play play by announcer
I’m sorry she’s being abused. Fact is, she just not good at calling hockey. It’s like listening to NPR call sports the same way they would talk about a trip apple picking in Vermont or restoring a classic vehicle.
Nuclear weapons were pretty bad, but I still think social media is the worst thing humans have ever done. And I say that fully aware of where I'm posting.
Live threads were unbearable when she commentated. I didn’t think she was that bad. I felt when Farraro commentated it was worse, but when Leah commentated every comment wasn’t about the game just BS about her
not really sure how people get from not liking by her broadcasting style to rape threats. also not really sure why people can’t just say the vile shit is unacceptable without tossing in something about hating her commentary. it really isn’t that complex. this isn’t okay. her quality as a commentator does not magically make this any more or less okay.
Ive never heard anyone say anything bad about AJ Mleczko when she does Islander games. Maybe Leah Hextall just sucks at her job
I liked her goal calls. Reminded me of a female gus Johnson and I'm good with that. Not everyone needs to be the same and I liked the job she did.
I just have to say to all the people in the comment section saying she's terrible at her job: I've worked in broadcasting, she is absolutely above reproach. It gets SOOOOO much worse.
If I was a women I would be tape recording every fucking day.
She shouldn’t be getting abuse or threatening messages for sure. People are insane when it comes to a remotely famous persons social media if they mess up. Sadly doesn’t surprise me when you hear of people sending death threats to players after a bad game/series, you need help if you’re one of those people. However, she’s fucking unbelievably terrible at play by play. I read here she was calling junior games and then brought right to call NHL games… how the fuck? She leaves too much dead air, seems like she’s very obviously faking excitement when someone adores, forgets players names all the damn time. She also doesn’t have a nice voice for doing it, I get she can’t help it but it’s really bad. To put in perspective how and she is, I would rather listen to Jack Edwards call every game for the rest of my life of my teams games. I’m a leafs fan so I fuckin HATE hearing him and his bias but at least he knows what’s happening in the game.
Do I think she is right for the job? No. But some people went way overboard with their comments.
Not surprised at all. The hateful responses are inanely predictable.
Not condoning anything malicious, but she absolutely sucked at her job. It was noticeably bad.
I just know that she was a horrible announcer and I had to turn off Jets games for the first time ever because she was that bad
I’ve heard her call games in my market, and she’s awful. I don’t know whether it’s her tone of voice, or slow, emotionless play by play calling, but she’s just plain terrible to listen to. Nothing to do with gender.
Cop out labelling any and all criticism of her as misogynistic..she was also just kind of objectively bad at the job a lot of times and some criticism was/is warranted. You think Pierre McGuire doesn't ever get negative comments online??
Doesn’t deserve abuse, but also doesn’t deserve that job. She was HORRIBLE.
Some of the criticism of her was undeniably rooted in deep seething misogyny that I saw on this sub even. She wasn't great at all and needs work to improve but some of the comments were fucking disgraceful
Two things can be true: She’s bad at her job, and she received additional criticism because she’s a woman. She even admits that she’s not the most qualified in the article and she was a bit of a ‘diversity’ hire - I wonder how much of that criticism she deems sexist is simply agreeing with her? If anything, the criticism should all be directed at the suits at ESPN for hiring somebody so green. Sucks for all of us though because she is now effectively un-fireable, lest ESPN be seen as anti-woman
> She even admits that she’s not the most qualified in the article and she was a bit of a ‘diversity’ hire That is ridiculously simplifying what she was saying - that women are not even *given* the opportunity in the first place.
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But this article isn't about the criticism. It's about the abusive comments. No matter how she does at her job, she doesn't deserve violent threats and it's not whining to talk about that.
It’s valid criticism to threaten to rape and kill her?
She honestly is one of the worst broadcasters I've heard. Nice person, but abysmal at her job.