It's been a dark stretch of the season for the Rangers, but yesterday was certainly a bright spot as the franchise honored its longtime play-by-play announcer, Sam Rosen. Sam is retiring at the end of this season, capping off an astonishing 40 years as the full-time television voice of a team that's about to turn 100 years old.
The festivities included the presentation of a golden microphone, an honorary jersey and messages from current and former Rangers greats.
The team also compiled some of Sam's most memorable calls over his long tenure. It's through those calls that most announcers are judged, so let's do the same for Sam.
If you had to boil Sam Rosen's announcing career down to a single quality, it would be simplicity. No bells, no whistles, no monologues and no attention paid to much of anything but the game going on right in front of him. One of the better examples of this is his 1997 call of Wayne Gretzky's playoff hat trick against the Florida Panthers.
"It's a hat trick for Wayne Gretzky! Wow!"Sam Rosen
Perfect. He conveys gravity through the emotion in his voice, not so much the meaning of the words themselves. What is the first thing you'd think or say watching the best to ever do it score his ninth playoff hat trick? Exactly. Wow. Gretzky's first goal in that game also features Sam's only real, recurring catch phrase, which isn't really a catch phrase at all. "It's a power play goal!" is a statement of fact, not a witty play on words, but if you ask any life-long Rangers fan to imitate Sam on the spot, they'd all say the same thing in the same exact way, without missing a beat.
Sam's style might be simple, but the way he sees the game and, more importantly, feels it, is among the best to have ever done it. You shouldn't judge the quality of a commentator just by the way they perform under the brightest of lights. Anyone with a pulse and half a brain could infer the importance of a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup finals. The true great ones become great when they can sense a major moment developing in real time and convey it successfully to viewers. Case in point, the Rangers' overtime winner from Brian Leetch during the team's home opener in 2001. On its face, it was just another nice start to a regular season which still had 81 games to go, but Sam could sense the energy building as the game went on. He filtered that feeling through the context surrounding this game, the first at Madison Square Garden since the September 11th terror attacks less than a month prior. He combined all that with what he was seeing and came to a conclusion on the spot: we have a moment on our hands.
You shouldn't judge the quality of a commentator just by the way they perform under the brightest of lights, but it certainly is the question on the final exam that carries the most weight in your overall score. The true greats, the names you remember forever, most often have their own version of "The Call." The Call for Al Michaels was the Miracle on Ice. The Call for Vin Scully was Kirk Gibson's World Series walk-off. If you're a Rangers fan, I don't need to tell you The Call for Sam.
It's already etched into your mind. It's no surprise that his greatest call came at the greatest moment in franchise history. The 1994 Stanley Cup championship was the rare kind of win in hockey which transcended the sport itself, leaving a mark on the greater sporting world. It's hard to say exactly how much of a role Sam's final call had on the moment's lasting impact. For me, at least, when that moment is mentioned, I always immediately picture two things; Mark Messier hopping like a crazed kindergartener during recess and Sam's voiceover booming:
"The waiting is over! The New York Rangers are the Stanley Cup champions! And this one will last a lifetime!"Sam Rosen
19 words I didn't even bother doublechecking for accuracy because I've known it by heart for the past three decades. 19 words which were truly adlibbed. Seconds before that moment, Sam blew his prepared remark on a bogus icing call which left just a couple of seconds left in the final period. For once, I'm truly grateful the referees messed up because the original call- while still delivered beautifully- just wasn't Sam. It was too canned, too artificial. Sam Rosen is extraordinary because he convinced you he was the opposite. Just another friend, sharing his love for the team the same way the rest of us do. It worked, and the memories he helped us make will last a lifetime.