Boston Globe FINN: A day at the rink with NBC’s Mike Emrick

[Fenway]

A day at the rink with NBC’s Mike Emrick | Boston.com
​

Among other accolades, Emrick has won six straight Emmy Awards as Outstanding Sports Personality, Play By Play, received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2008 for outstanding contributions to the sport as a broadcaster, and became the first media member inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011.

Yet when he’s asked, after 46 years of calling hockey games at a professional level, what he hasn’t done that he would like to, he offers a recollection rather than an unfulfilled wish, and his voice rises in the telling the same something-is-about-to-happen way as when he’s anticipating a goal. And that’s when he tells you about the time he called a girls’ hockey game among 12-year-olds in Detroit during the 2012-13 NHL lockout.
“I think that was one of the finest nights I ever spent in the rink,’’ said Emrick, who did it for a segment on a newsmagazine show. “The [show’s producers] did great research before, and gave me nuggets on all of the kids.

Click to read more...

 

[Aeroforce]

I'm a big fan of Emrick's and love the excitement and personality he brings to each game.

We as hockey fans are very lucky to have him.

 

[Gordoff]

Gimme Jack any day!

 

[Fenway]

https://apnews.com/d23773c77b8b45ddaf67c2a273a066ab

Down time for Emrick comes mostly in the summer when he and Joyce, his wife of almost 41 years, go on camping trips to small towns, mostly in Michigan or visit his brother and stepmother who still live in his Indiana hometown. He does like to watch his beloved Pittsburgh Pirates. During the season, they like going to lunch and at night sit together in the living room with their two dogs Joybells and Liberty — he’s watching hockey and she’s watching veterinarian shows.

“That’s a nice night for us,” Emrick says. “It’s probably not a life many people would find really exciting, but we enjoy it.”

Joyce and dogs are the centerpieces of Emrick’s universe that has plenty of room for the people who consider themselves lucky to call him a friend. That includes broadcast partners of various vintages — Eddie Olczyk, Glenn “Chico” Resch, Bill Clement and Davidson. He has helped many through difficult times by listening or simply lighting a candle in church for them.

“Just the support part of it from Doc is what is the most important thing,” said Olczyk, who leaned on Emrick when he was battling cancer. “He doesn’t even have to say anything, but if you just get a text or a picture or whatever, you know he’s thinking about you. Having been through it himself, that’s what friends do. I look at Doc as a friend.”

Emrick is 28 years removed from prostate cancer. He got the call from Hershey Medical Center on a Friday night while he was on the road in Montreal doing play by play for the Philadelphia Flyers. He waited two days to tell Joyce in person — saying she was going to need to be a rock because he didn’t know what to expect — but right away he told Clement, who considers Emrick as close as a brother.

 

[ODAAT]

I respect all he`s done but I`m simply not a fan, and it`s likely for the more ludicrous reason of all but I can`t stand the sound/pitch of his voice, drives me nuts and I find it hard to listen to so if I have the option, I find a feed where he`s not the PBP guy