I met Rick Jeanneret once.
It was, of all places, in Belfast, New York. Back in 2018, Jeanneret visited the small town in Allegany County as an honoree of the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame. How exactly did a hockey announcer wind up in such a place?
“No one in history has called more ‘bare-knuckle’ fights than Rick; albeit his were on ice,” BKBHOF President Scott Burt said in the Hall of Fame announcement at the time. Former longtime Sabres tough guy Rob Ray was a previous honoree and attended the 2018 ceremony.
A huge Sabres fan growing up, I wouldn’t miss the chance to cover such an event and meet someone I spent countless hours listening to on TV and the radio. So while that was my first meeting, I felt like I knew him my whole life.
MY FIRST impressions were that he had a welcoming handshake and spoke in a gentle, calm voice when not broadcasting for thousands of Sabres fans. RJ remarked that Belfast wasn’t too different from the small Ontario town he grew up in, Terrace Bay.
Some of Jeanneret’s most memorable calls related to the dropping of gloves. Think the kind of line brawls that even included the goalies — like Steve Shields and Garth Snow, or Marty Biron and Ray Emery — or many involving his future broadcast partner, Ray. But there was no doubt by 2018 that fighters were on the decline in the NHL, and organized hockey in general. I thought RJ had an even-handed look at the matter.
“I treat the fight just like any other part of the game, a great goal, a great save, a big hit, anything else and a fight I would just deal with it as it came along,” Jeanneret said. “Do I care if they banned it from the game? No, I wouldn’t, but they haven’t. The fact of the matter is as long as it’s still legal, you can’t come back on me and say, ‘How come you make them sound exciting?’ Well then you want me to make nothing sound exciting? Make up your mind. So that’s the way I stand on it anyway.”
By then, RJ was in the twilight of his career, working fewer games, with less travel, deeper into what turned out to be a 51-year run behind the microphone at The Aud or KeyBank Center.
I WAS SO glad the Sabres were able to give him the send-off he deserved at the end of the 2021-22 season. It was hard not to choke up watching his speech on “RJ Night,” when his banner joined those of Sabres legends and the founding owners in the arena’s rafters, or when he finally signed off after a Casey Mittelstadt overtime goal in a game against Chicago.
For fans of my generation and surely many before, RJ was just as much a part of why we started following the Sabres as much as any player — even the great ones like Dominik Hasek. So it’s fitting that an “RJ” with a microphone symbol sits among the great jersey numbers in franchise history.
He made the games feel important. His calls of playoff goals — “Now do you believe?” — or massive saves from Hasek or Ryan Miller — “Milllllerrrrrr stops him cold!” — big hits or fiery fights, they all made big moments even bigger, indelible memories whether you were watching at home or listening in your car. I’ll never forget jumping up and down in my friend’s basement after Jason Pominville’s shorthanded goal in Ottawa as RJ yelled “These guys are good: scary good!”
AS A teenager, I had some of these memorized, thanks to countless listens to a CD my dad bought at a game of RJ’s most famous calls fittingly titled “Roll the Highlight Film.”
There were the incredible moments: “May Day,” “Are you ready, Legion of Boom?” Or the iconic player-specific calls, making folk heroes of stars and role players alike, from “(Pat) La-La-La-La-LaFontaine” and “Oooh-la-la Pierre (Turgeon)” to “Stuuuuuuuu Barnes” or “If you’re out and about, give a honk for the Goose (Paul Gaustad).”
There was one man who you could count on to tell you about the “population of Pominville.”
I don’t think I’ll ever get that energetic voice out of my head when I watch a hockey game. And I, like all fans who heard his distinctive calls, are all the better for it.
(Sports editor Sam Wilson may be contacted at samwilsonsp@gmail.com)
