You can accuse Charles Barkley of being many things, but what you can’t accuse him of not being is a hockey aficionado. Barkley wears his NHL fandom on his sleeve, as the NBA on TNT analyst has made no secret of his love for the sport of hockey.
Over the years, he’s even talked about watching the NHL playoffs “in the back” while working on NBA coverage. And he’s repeatedly shown up at hockey playoff games or on NHL coverage to discuss his enjoyment of the game (and has often criticized the NBA along the way, another running theme for him). And with TNT gaining NHL rights last year, Barkley’s shown up on their hockey coverage at times as well.
It begs whether Barkley’s NHL fandom is welcomed at TNT. And that’s exactly what Brandon Contes asked Kenny Albert on the latest episode of the Awful Announcing podcast. Albert, the only sportscaster who currently does play-by-play for all four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, took over as the NHL on TNT’s lead play-by-play voice beginning in 2021.
“Oh, they love it,” Albert told Contes when asked if the other analysts enjoy Barkley’s input. “I’ve gotten to spend some time, we all have—the TNT hockey crew—around Charles. He actually was at two of the games during the [Stanley] Cup Final(s) in Florida and rode back to the hotel with us in a van. There was five or six of us, and Charles was holding court. He is a huge hockey fan. He calls it. He watches it. When he played in Philadelphia, and then in Phoenix, he would go to games.”
Albert recalled that about a month ago, they had had a seminar down in Atlanta with all the announcers from the various sports within Warner Bros. Discovery.
“Charles was front and center…with the hockey group,” said Albert. “And he’s excited about the upcoming season. So we certainly welcome him tagging along, visiting us, attending hockey games, whatever he’d like.”
Albert was asked if he would be interested in calling a game with Barkley if he was a third voice in the broadcast booth and not the lead color commentator/analyst.
“That’s a great idea,” Albert conceded. “At first, I thought you meant basketball, but I guess we’re talking about hockey. And I’ve done, the [New York] Knicks, 15 or so games a year, for the last 15 years with Walt “Clyde” Frazier, who along with Charles, is one of the greatest players of all time. But yeah, having the opportunity to work a game with Charles would definitely be a lot of fun. He really knows hockey. He knows the history, the strategy. He follows the current teams and players. He’s close with Jon Cooper, the head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning. He’s close with Wayne Gretzky and Rick Toccet. That may be something that we may have to throw out there to the TNT executives.”
Albert would take calling either an NHL or NBA game with Barkley, but said, “It would certainly be interesting to see how he would do on a hockey broadcast. I think he would be terrific.”
The only issue is, that NHL players may not have any idea who is, as he recently said that Jack Eichel looked at him like, “Who the hell are you?‘”
Let’s make it happen, TNT. Maybe Eichel will know who Barkley is by then.
The full episode of The Awful Announcing Podcast with Kenny Albert will be released Friday morning. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. For more content, subscribe to AA’s YouTube page.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.