St. Louis Blues To Televise Exhibition And Round-Robin Games

(Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
(Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

St. Louis Blues fans won’t have to wait to see their team. All the build up games will be televised.

The St. Louis Blues last played an actual game on March 11, 2020. By the time they hit the ice again, it will have been over four months since they dropped the puck.

That is close to a full offseason. One more month would just about do it for what a non-playoff team experiences for a regular offseason. If you play through the first round and get knocked out, this is about the time you have between games.

Now, teams are coming off an “offseason” and playing games that are extremely significant right off the bat. Such is life in 2020.

Thankfully, Blues fans won’t have to wait much longer to actually see their team. Unlike years of old, where there were a lot of dark games, as far as televised action went, the Blues will have all their build up games televised.

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According to several sources, including Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Blues exhibition game and all their round-robin games are going to be broadcast. In keeping with normal playoff tradition, recently, Fox Sports Midwest will air those games.

The Blues will face the Chicago Blackhawks in a warm-up exhibition game on July 29. St. Louis will then battle it out with the Colorado Avalanche on August 2, Vegas Golden Knights August 6 and wrap up with the Dallas Stars on August 9.

Start times for the Chicago and Colorado game are 5:30 Central Time. The league has not announced the times of the subsequent games as of yet.

The Fox Sports crew will be the normal set. John Kelly will be on play-by-play with Darren Pang on color commentary. Scott Warman and Bernie Federko will handle the pre and postgame duties.

If the broadcast sounds slightly off or different, it will be because they are doing it remotely. Kelly and Pang will be in St. Louis, calling the game off a monitor from a central NHL feed.

As a broadcaster, it is not quite as hard as it sounds, but it takes away from your ability to paint a more complete picture. You have no ability to see what is going on around the benches or if someone was late on a line change or what have you. Hopefully the NHL will provide all camera feeds at once so Panger can keep an eye on the side action while Kelly focuses on the game itself.

Unfortunately for hockey-first fans, the Blues game against Chicago at the end of this month will get bumped for the St. Louis Cardinals. If you have Fox Sports Plus, it will be on that channel. Otherwise, you will have to stream the game via the Fox Sports Go app or their website.