Outspoken Brett Hull is coming to NBC's broadcasts

	Anything can happen when a microphone is placed in front of Brett Hull's mouth. Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images
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The NHL may be struggling to fill seats at the rink this season, but the league could find a growing number of Americans planting themselves in front of the tube when NBC resumes its national broadcasts next month.

No, they're not switching out the first two periods with a test pattern, or replacing the shootout with an exciting new tiebreaker that involves players selecting briefcases from a wall of super models. Not that anyone's ruling out either option just yet.

No, the future of televised hockey in America grew brighter when NBC announced last week that Brett Hull will join Bill Clement and Ray Ferraro as an analyst between periods of Saturday afternoon broadcasts.

If you've ever heard Hull speak, this long-rumored hiring seems almost too good to be true. A man born with no internal censor, Hull's segments will be the closest thing to Must-See TV on the struggling network since the demise of Seinfeld.

The soon-to-be Hall of Famer is smart, articulate, entertaining, and completely devoid of artifice. Best of all, there's no shtick to Hull. He's colorful, but he's no cartoon. He won't mimic the braying jackassery of Terry Bradshaw or catch- phrase lunacy of Dick Vitale.

And a man who has repeatedly claimed Barry Manilow's Mandy as his favorite song clearly isn't worried what anyone thinks of him. He's a guy who always tells it straight. And if he has something to say that might offend someone, well, that's Brett.

"I've been known to be hard on players," he once said in defense of his forthrightness. "But it's only because I want them to be better and be the best they can be. At times, I just don't think they try to do that, and it's the same with the league. Sometimes I don't think the league is trying to make itself better."

That candor is exactly what this broadcast needs to distinguish itself from a tough Saturday afternoon programming slate that includes regional figure skating competitions and the Million Dollar Movie.

"I just think he's going to really stir it, and that's going to be fun," said Sam Flood, NBC's executive producer of hockey telecasts.

It'll definitely be fun for the viewers. It remains to be seen whether the same will be said for the good folks at NBC. Flood and his cohorts clearly are hoping to capture the same shoot-from-the-hip magic that Charles Barkley brings to NBA broadcasts on TNT. Cable, of course, is a different animal, which begs the question: Will the suits at NBC have the stomach to let Brett be Brett? If Hull stays true to form, he won't make it easy on them.

On his weekly radio show on KTCK in Dallas, Hull last Wednesday gave a taste of what viewers can expect from the man with no verbal boundaries. When asked by the host to describe his feelings toward Mike Keenan, his former coach and GM in St. Louis, Hull answered with typical candor:

"He's a bad human," Hull said. "He's the NHL's version of Adolf Hitler. He did more bad things to good people than anyone."

Can't quite imagine the hockey savvy but painfully vanilla Ferraro lobbing a grenade like that, can you?

The sad reality is that, for all the efforts they made last season, NBC's broadcasts were easy for even hardcore hockey fans to overlook. With the availability of Center Ice, and contracts that put virtually every game on local TV (Chicago's not really an NHL market, right?), there was no real reason to tune in for yet another game featuring one of the same four or five teams every week.

Hull creates that reason. Like Don Cherry's segments on CBC's Hockey Night In Canada, you'll want to plan around them. And even if you're watching him live, you might want to roll the TiVo. You never know when he'll offer up a "What did he just say?" moment.

It may be uncomfortable at times, especially when the skewer's in their rump, but this larger than life character is exactly what the NHL needs to capture the Saturday afternoon channel flipper.

Expect Hull's volleys to come fast and furious beginning on Jan. 13, when NBC starts its second season of hockey telecasts. If hockey fans are lucky, he'll still be there on the 20th.