I've debated doing this on and off for probably the last two years of reading these threads, but I'm going to come clean and confess that I don't get the hate for Pierre Maguire.
He's not my *favorite* announcer by any means -- he looks like a weasel and he talks more than he should (or needs to), but in terms of analysis, he's very very good. I don't know if NBC dumbs him down a bit for the American audience (I haven't done a side-by-side comparison), but I generally enjoyed him on TSN and even at his worst down here, he's no worse than "tolerable" to me.
Your mileage may (obviously) vary.
