It was sad news to hear of legendary Buffalo Sabres broadcaster Rick Jeanneret’s death at the age of 81 on Thursday night. Someone’s passing is rarely anticipated or planned for. It almost always takes us unaware, when we least expect it. We’re never ready for it and then it happens. RJ’s exit from this world was no exception.
As a sports writer and editor, you tend to wear many hats. You take work when and where you can get it and it’s not unusual to balance multiple gigs. Last year, I had a short stint with a company that paid me to write recaps, much like Die By the Blade. One of those matchups was the Chicago Blackhawks versus the St. Louis Blues.
I had the choice of watching the game streaming through the Chicago broadcast or the St. Louis affiliate. Thinking the larger Chicago media market would have better commentators, I chose the Windy City feed. How wrong I was! The color guys reminded me of two Joe Buck clones who thought every word out of their mouth was hilarious. They didn’t seem to know the difference between a red line and a blue line and didn’t care.
I remember thinking how lucky fans in Buffalo were to have somebody like Rick Jeanneret broadcasting Sabres games. RJ added flavor to every play and he had a way with language few other media personalties ever mastered. He would say “back to the point it comes” when describing the puck’s movement on the ice. He invented phrases and expressions that are now part of Sabres lore, from “top shelf, where Mama hides the cookies”, to “la-la-la-la-LaFontaine”, to “scary good”.
Games never went to OT, they were always going to “ovverrtimmme!”. During RJ’s last broadcast, the contest between the Sabres and Blackhawks ended in regulation tied 2-2, but for some reason Jeanneret didn’t give his long drawn-out trademark “ovverrtimmme” at the end of the third period. I thought to myself, what if the Sabres lose in OT and RJ never gets to say it again? Or if the Blue and Gold blow it at the end of Jeanneret’s last game? Years of disappointments as a Sabres fan entered my mind.
Somehow, like it was pre-ordained, Casey Mittelstadt found the back of the Hawks’ net and won it for RJ and the fans. Jeanneret came up with a final RJ-worthy quip “Casey, Casey at the bat, Casey Mittelstadt hammers it home and Buffalo wins it in oovverrrtimmmeee!” Mitts got the goal, but it was really RJ at the bat and he swung and hit a grand slam for his broadcasting finale.