The real reason Eddie Olczyk is leaving the Seattle Kraken broadcast booth
Eddie Olczyk called just 21 of Seattle's 82 games last season, which makes his departure less a loss than a formality.
The Seattle Kraken announced Tuesday that Olczyk is stepping away from Kraken Hockey Network after four seasons.
He stays on as Turner Sports' lead NHL analyst, a role that already consumed 65 national broadcasts last year.
"Dear Kraken fans,
I wanted to let you know that I've decided to step away from my analyst role on Kraken Hockey Network for personal and family reasons. It's time for me to go back home and be there for me and my family.
I want to thank everyone in the Kraken organization, past and present, and the entire Kraken Hockey Network team for giving me this opportunity. It was a privilege to share the broadcasts with JT, Piper and our incredible studio crew led by Ian, Alison and Brett. And a special thank you to Johnny. It was an absolute privilege to sit beside you for the past four years. There's nobody better! Hopefully we'll have the chance to call some national Kraken broadcasts together down the line.
To the fans, thank you for supporting us from day one. Hopefully, you learned a little about Kraken hockey and laughed a lot while we called the games. I'm truly grateful.
Let's go Kraken!"
- Eddie Olczyk
I wanted to let you know that I've decided to step away from my analyst role on Kraken Hockey Network for personal and family reasons. It's time for me to go back home and be there for me and my family.
I want to thank everyone in the Kraken organization, past and present, and the entire Kraken Hockey Network team for giving me this opportunity. It was a privilege to share the broadcasts with JT, Piper and our incredible studio crew led by Ian, Alison and Brett. And a special thank you to Johnny. It was an absolute privilege to sit beside you for the past four years. There's nobody better! Hopefully we'll have the chance to call some national Kraken broadcasts together down the line.
To the fans, thank you for supporting us from day one. Hopefully, you learned a little about Kraken hockey and laughed a lot while we called the games. I'm truly grateful.
Let's go Kraken!"
- Eddie Olczyk
John Forslund and J.T. Brown had already been working most Kraken telecasts as a duo.
The two-man booth returning full time formalizes what viewers were mostly watching anyway.
The math stopped working before the announcement
Olczyk turns 60 on August 16 and has been commuting between his Chicago-area home and Seattle while adding national radio assignments.
Sixty-five national games plus 21 local ones is not a schedule anyone sustains into a seventh decade.
The squeeze is about to get worse for everyone in his position. The new collective bargaining agreement pushes the regular season from 82 games to 84 beginning in 2026-27, with the calendar starting in late September to fit it.
Local booths are losing the national voices
That extra inventory lands on national rightsholders too, and the United States rights held by ESPN and Turner expire after 2027-28.
Analysts with national value have every incentive to protect their availability for the auction that follows.
Olczyk is not an outlier here, he is the first clear example. The dual-role analyst who anchors a regional broadcast while carrying a national playoff load is becoming structurally impossible, and teams outside the biggest markets will feel it first.
Seattle does get something back.
Brown arrived with almost no broadcast experience and spent four years beside a U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame analyst, an apprenticeship Forslund has said Brown absorbed completely.
Also read on House Of Hockey :
The Red Wings just revealed what they need in a Dylan Larkin replacement
The Red Wings just revealed what they need in a Dylan Larkin replacement