New York Post, Sunday, October 25, 2020
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SERBY’S SUNDAY Q&A WITH ...
Recently retir ed longtime sports announcer
Mike “Doc” Emrick, known primarily for
hockeycove rage, trades in doing play-by-
play fo r someQ&A with Post sportscolum-
nist Steve Serby.
Q: Whichof your 22 St anley Cu p finals
play-by-plays was your favorite?
A: Oh boy. It’s kind of like the father asked
which of his children ar e the favorite?
There were a couple when Pittsburgh and
Detroitwent back-to-back in ’08 and ’09.
I dr ew the lucky card in that I was work-
ing the nationalgame when theteam that
I followed all year long, theNew Jersey
Devils,won, andI got to call a homegame
when theCup was clinched,which isa
rarity to have it won at hometo begin with
and let aloneto be theguy that was at the
microphonewhen it happened.The ’95
Final sweep of Detroit, thefourth game
would stand out in my mindfor sure too
because itwas the first time that there’s
ever beena championshipwon by a team in
New Jersey.
Q: Whichof your five Olympicswas
your favo rite?
A: I would say it was probably 2010 , the
gold-medalgame, because it epitomizedto
me the bestof all hockey had to offer. You
had a game between thetwo North Ameri-
can powers, and itwas onthe afternoonof
the closingceremony, so there were a lot
of peoplewatching. Andyou had a game
where the goalie was pulled,the outcome
was in doubt,and ZachParise from the
United States scored in thewaning seconds
to forc e overtime.Then you had all the
uncertainty as the Zamboniwent back and
forth duringthe intermission: Who’s gonna
score? When’s this gonna end? And then
Sidney Crosby scored andCanada won.
Q:Describe the T. J. Oshiegoal at the
2014 Soch i Olympicsto beat the Soviet
Union?
A: That would certainly enter into it, too, as
far as a non-gold medalgame, that would
probably be the mostdr amatic that I’ve
witnessed. T.J. took it so casually. Mike
Eruzione had a celebr ation that was under-
standable, because he had brokena tie with
10 minutes to go in the third period ina tre-
mendousupset [over Russia in Lake Placid
in 1980]. Andeven though thisdidn’t even
approximate the upsetof a Russian team
in 2014, it was dr amatic nonetheless.It was
in the preliminaryround, I understand
that, but it went on and on andfinally, this
guy had a chance to clinch, hewas taking
his sixth shootout attempt, he had alrea dy
scored on threeof the previous ones— he
had a smile on hisface! And hewent in and
he scored, and thefirst thing hedid was
pointat his goaltender.
Q: Who were your favorite players to
interview?
A: That would be about a 500-way tie for
first. Da ve Poulin was one. ... LarryRob-
insonwas just magnificent. ...Bob Gainey,
who later went onto becomea general
manager. ... Scott Stev ens was injured ina
game inTampa and thenwe had to go into
Buffalo anddo a game the nextda y and
it looked like it was gonna bea rare game
that Scot t Stev ens was gonna miss due to
injury. And then late in the afternoon they
said, “No, Scott’s playing.” So I ran do wn
in thedr essingroom area and itwas just
before they would lock usoff, 90 minutes
before game timeI sat do wn with him, and
I said: “What is this? Eddie Shore [legend-
ary tough guy who had his ear sewnback
on without anesthetic] and allof this other
hockey lore? Is that why you’re playing?”
And hesaid, “That’s pret ty much it.Thisis what we do. We play above injury.” And
that’ s all hesaid!
Q: Enforc ers: Who doyou thinkof?
A: Bob Probertfor one. Oneof the things
that I recall was listeningto a Rangers
game on theradio with Marv Albert and
Sal Mess ina, I was in the car. Andof course
Marv knows boxing, and Marvwas going
on about how impressed hewas that Prob-
ert was able to change hands duringthe
fight. ... CraigBerube, becauseof just the
raw numberof fights. ...There were fe ared
guys like Dave Schultz. ... And probably
one of the smaller, tougherguys and the
guy who had the all-time leadership in pen-
alty minutes was Dave “Tiger” Williams.
Q: Snipers: Who comes to mind?
A: Mike Bossy was one — my goodness,
could heever shoot! Bill Barberwas
another because he had the big shotoff the
wing, but Mike Bossy could come down
andsplit thegoaltender’s legs with a shot,
or hecould fire it. It was nothingfor him
to scor e 50 goals. And now, it’s just Alex
[Ovechkin].
Q: Goaltenders: Whocomes to mind?
A: Well, I’mspoiled.I had 18 years hang-
ing around the Devils, and thefirst year
that I showed up there in 1993 af ter the
threeyears that I’d put in in the early
stretch with them, Marty [Brodeur]
was a rookie.He strikes me as the
best, although there were somewon-
derful goaltenders in between. Grant
Fuhr played so many games — he
would play 70, 75 games a year. And
of course PatrickRoy. I admired
Marty for how much he enjoyed
playing, and how kind hewas to
people that he was around.
Q: Who are announcers or
broadcasters you admire
today?
A: I’m biased becauseI like
Greg Brown, who does the
Pirate games ’cause I listento
him all the time.The fact that
I got to work with Bob Costas
for one memorablebaseball
game, I’ll never do another
baseball again because this
turned out to be so perfect.
To walk around PNCPark
and go into clubhousesof
the Pirates and Cubs, and
see therespect that the
players and thetwo manag-
ers had for him, and justto
sit there and listento the
questions that he asked,
that was pret ty memorable
for me. And in an earlier era,
Marty Glickman, becauseI
got to hear him on nationalgames when I was growing up and
then I got to meet him later because
he was our broadcastingcoach at
SportsChannelwhen I was doing
Devilsgames. And so he andI would
meet on theUpper EastSide and
we’d go to lunch and hewould pick
a differe nt restaurant witha differ-
ent nationality every timewe’d go,
because allI knew were burgers
and fries.
Q: What are your thoughts on
Vin Scully?
A: The one thing that I learnedat din-
ner withBob Costas the night before
that one game was we were talking about
all thegreat announcers and hesaid, “Do
you realize that nobody knows whether
Vin is Republican, Democrat or inde-
pendent?Because it’s always ‘pull
up a chair.’ ” And that’s what I’ve
hopedto replicate all of these
games, is notto bring
in anythingEMRICKEMRICEMRICKK
‘Doc’
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