Hull tees off.

NHL on NBC analyst Brett Hull had some interesting words on NHL television coverage.

Hull wants … a hockey version of the network’s one-hour pregame football show, Football Night in America … during a typical 21/2-hour game telecast, Hull and Co. get about 10 minutes before the game, then a few minutes between the first and second periods, to comment.

“You need to have some sort of pregame or postgame show so we can sit down and talk about the trade deadline ? or the Buffalo-Ottawa (brawl),” Hull says. “I have a lot to say. But in 20 seconds, you have to be some sort of English lit professor to do it with any style or bravado.”

It is a rarity for an analyst to criticize the network he’s working for publicly. Charles Barkley has criticized TNT, Turner and Time Warner before, but his comments are often in jest. Hull’s remarks weren’t necessarily inflammatory, but they still send a signal that there are no limits to who he will criticize.

Hull also went off on Versus, saying that “I don’t even think people know Versus is a station. Just what is a Versus? It’s a ridiculously bad channel.” As Detroit Free Press writer Steve Schrader pointed out, that must have made Bill Clement, Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk (all of whom work for both NBC and Versus) very happy.

In sports media, its important not to burn bridges or criticize coworkers. Keith Olbermann burned bridges at both ESPN and FOX Sports before succeeding at a career in news, while Trev Alberts rebelled against his ESPN bosses — and ended up working for CSTV. Hull is too important to NBC’s NHL coverage to be in any real trouble (like Barkley is to TNT), but he might be better served keeping his criticism to the players in the future.