To start the month, ESPN had Stephen A. Smith and long-time Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay debate which professional New York sports will next win a title. When Kay argued the easy answer was the NHL’s New York Rangers, Smith was wildly dismissive about even having a conversation about it.
With ESPN owning partial NHL broadcast rights, the hockey community was understandably displeased. According to Kay, Smith’s thoughts angered some hockey people even higher up the ladder: the league powers that be.
On a recent podcast episode of The Michael Kay Show, Kay discussed the fallout from his live conversation with Smith. The broadcaster added an important note about the NHL’s reaction.
“By the way. One addendum to that. I heard today, the NHL, red-hot.”
It’d be one thing if Smith showed he didn’t care much about the NHL independently. It still would’ve been silly, but his thoughts wouldn’t be connected to his network on a $400 million annual deal with the league. The arguable face of ESPN simply can’t be firing off weird shots at the NHL from this position.
To Smith’s credit, he seemed to understand the immediate fallout, as he posted a “hype” video talking up the Rangers after his hockey comments surfaced:
Go @NYRangers pic.twitter.com/x6HZuR79cB
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) March 3, 2023
Talk about a quick (and probably needed) backtrack.