12 Best Characters in Hockey Today (With the Video to Prove It)

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If the NHL lockout zaps the 2013 All-Star Game, there goes the best annual opportunity for a scrapbook of highlights from some of the sport’s best players with some of the best senses of humor.

NHL players and broadcasters make their business by giving paying customers a healthy diversion from their business life. Yet a decent smattering of those involved in the game will seize almost any opportunity to loosen up themselves and their colleagues as well.

Players, when appropriate, will temporarily cool the heat of battle. Announcers, meanwhile, will thread knee-slapping phrases and fervor to viewers or listeners with almost no limitation.

Here is a dazzling dozen of current on- and off-ice personalities who are some of the go-to contributors to hockey’s lighter side.

Paul Bissonnette

Paul Bissonnette is less of a player than he is a pugilist and less of a pugilist than he is an opportunistic, off-ice humorist.

With that said, during his involvement in the NHL, he has logged considerably qualitative and quantitative face time on any given network that covers his team or his league.

Ilya Bryzgalov

Flyers fans can only hope that, from his second year with the team onward, Ilya Bryzgalov is not as in awe of the demanding Philadelphia market as he is of the universe.

Jack Edwards

Sometimes, the Boston Bruins’ television play-by-play announcer gets a hard-earned laugh out of his audience. Other times, he draws a smirk and a head shake when he tries too hard to be colorful.

It doesn’t matter either way. Jack Edwards is simply one of those sportscasters who never loses sight of the fact that this is a form of entertainment.

Vernon Fiddler

No more questions need to be asked about a player’s lighthearted character traits when he manages to crack up his opposing players and coaches in the middle of a game.

Scott Hartnell

That teamwork-related metaphor about scratching someone else’s back was never meant to be taken literally, but that did not stop Scott Hartnell during Claude Giroux's pregame interview. In fact, when Hartnell is not in the heat of competition, it is apparently a struggle for him to avoid amusement.

Patrick Kane

If only events like the skills competition occurred more regularly. Then maybe Patrick Kane would exhaust his inner child on the ice and thus better assure his Chicago employers that he has nothing but energy for business at the right moments.

Mike Lange

The longtime Pittsburgh Penguins play-by-play man admits that his scroll of peculiar phrases has been painstakingly compiled through the years. The preparation is always worth it, as local fans get a simultaneous cheer and chuckle every time the Pens light the lamp.

Randy Moller

A rare instance of a former player becoming a play-by-play broadcaster, Randy Moller is the energetic and cultured radio voice of the Florida Panthers. Like Lange and Edwards, he is about as likely to dish up an ear-perking expression on game night as a participating goalie is to make an important save.

Sure, almost none of his goal calls make a single ice chip of sense, but leaving everyone in dumbfounded confusion is one textbook definition of an eccentric character. Moller has his place among hockey's top humorists.

Alexander Ovechkin

Anybody else miss the NHL’s densest individual combination of skill and spirit yet?

Carey Price

In addition to flurries of amusing highlights amidst regular season action (particularly when he drop-kicks the puck after summoning a whistle), Carey Price decided to go all-out during the last All-Star skills competition and lampoon a then-current event from another major sport.

Cory Schneider

This author cannot confirm whether or not Cory Schneider took a voice acting class while he was at Boston College, but the Canucks’ netminder picked up a prolific penchant for impressions somewhere down the line.

Kris Versteeg

As was verified at a charity auction shortly before last season began, Panthers fans covet Kris Versteeg’s entertaining presence almost as much as Panthers management depends on his scoring.