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NHL Broadcaster Kevin Weekes Is About to Become a Free Agent

anthony crupi
·6 min read

If the Stanley Cup Final goes the full seven games, Kevin Weekes is going to clean up on frequent flyer points. Including the initial flight from New York to South Florida, the NHL broadcaster is looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 11,369 sky miles on the off chance the series closes out in Miami on June 24.

Nothing about Weekes’ demeanor suggests he has any misgivings about the prospect of spending what amounts to 34.7 hours buckled into a miniature Barcalounger suspended 30,000 feet over the Earth’s surface. “I’ll be going back and forth between the cities, and I’m told it’ll be the most traveled Stanley Cup Final in league history,” Weekes says. “Whatever it takes. I’m really passionate about this sport and I just want to bring as much great coverage to the fans as possible. Just turn the camera on, and I’ll be ready to go.”

The 49-year-old former goalie and on-air Swiss Army Knife—by Weekes’ own estimation, he’s handled eight distinct roles since joining ESPN’s NHL squad in 2021—will be all over the Oilers-Panthers series like frost on a skate blade. In addition to his ESPN duties, which may include everything from remote hits for SportsCenter to appearances on the ABC pregame show, Weekes also will call the games for the NHL international feed, where he’ll be paired up with longtime wingman E.J. Hradek. 

The international broadcast is available in more than 160 countries and territories, reaching hockey-crazed fans in European strongholds (Latvia, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia), as well as such far-flung corners of the globe as Sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea.

“E.J. and I have known each other going back to my early playing days, when he was a writer for ESPN,” Weekes says. “So it’s always a lot of fun being on that international broadcast.”

Whenever he calls a game on the global feed, Weekes will field text messages from many of the pros he played alongside over the course of his 11-year stint in the net. The texts pour in from old friends now stationed in places like Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, although up-and-coming players haven’t been shy about reaching out, either. One future star who’s now with the Hurricanes organization recently pinged Weekes during a regular-season game to share a memory of watching him play on an outdoor TV his grandfather had rigged up behind his home in Finland.

While this will be his 15th Stanley Cup Final since he hung up his skates in 2009, Weekes can’t say for certain what he’ll be doing when the puck drops on the 2024-25 NHL season. “This will be a big summer,” he says. “This coming offseason I’ll be a complete free agent across every platform, but I’m really excited for what’s ahead and kind of looking forward to how that all gets navigated with my agent, Paul Theofanous.”

It’s hard to imagine an NHL season without Weekes, whose life has been inextricably tied to the league for nearly 30 years. For what it’s worth, ESPN has begun re-upping some of its big-name hockey talent, signing Mark Messier to a multiyear extension last week. By Weekes’ own reckoning, he caught the broadcast bug when he was a teenager, when he was featured on a CBC show about young NHL prospects. “I’m 16, 17, my dad’s driving me up to training camp and there’s this camera crew in tow,” Weekes remembers. “They were chronicling our journey into the game and our unique cultural background or what have you, and that was kind of where it all took off, I guess.”

Always a hyper-focused student of the game, Weekes found himself volunteering to do interviews with local media while he was barnstorming through the UHL. It was his ease in front of the camera and his encyclopedic knowledge of hockey that made the young goalie think, “Hey, I can do this”—although a full immersion into TV wouldn’t come until after he’d retired from the NHL.

When he finally did step off the ice and into the booth, Weekes made history, becoming the first Black NHL analyst. Since then, he’s arguably put in more time on TV than any other hockey analyst on the planet. “It really comes down to how much I love the craft,” Weekes says. “I love broadcasting, I’m very passionate about it, and I treat it with the same respect I did playing. I know where I fit in among the top-tier broadcasters in our sport, and I’m excited for what the future holds.”

Which isn’t to say that Weekes will spend his summer slacking. Last month, he and his wife Megan launched Speekes, a consultancy firm which he refers to as “the family business.” The startup essentially serves in an advisory capacity to clients who are looking to navigate the treacherous headwaters of the 21st century, providing counsel on everything from media strategy to communications both within the workplace and out into the global marketplace.

“We help brands, businesses and people be their best selves,” Weekes says. “This is such a wild landscape, and the proliferation of platforms and hot-button issues have made for a good deal of trepidation for a lot of people. To that end, we offer a whole suite of services, from media training to crisis management to executive coaching. And it’s been going gangbusters ever since we launched.”

As far as his own on-air future is concerned, Weekes says he’s eager to expand his repertoire. “I’d like to weigh in on other sports,” he says. “I may be a hockey nerd, but I’m not one-dimensional; my sports knowledge kind of transcends that. Hockey’s my first love, but I would be open to expanding into areas, and platforms, beyond what I’ve been doing the past 15 years.”

In the near term, Weekes is not making any predictions as to who’ll be babysitting the trophy throughout the offseason. “Florida can bring the game into Alligator Alley, and when they chomp down and do that death roll, it’s a different deal,” he says. “Off the rush, off the cycle, skill, finesse, give-and-go, power down low, physical, tenacious: They’re just a very balanced team.

“In the case of Edmonton, they’ve got the best player in the league and the most electrifying player that I’ve seen in my time not named ‘Wayne Gretzky’ or ‘Mario Lemieux,’” Weekes says. “Florida is the more complete team, but there’s something really serendipitous about the Oilers.”

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