If there are two things in life that are notorious for putting people to sleep, they are Thanksgiving turkey and bookkeeping details. Today is the fourth Thursday in November, so our staff (which is, uh, me) decided it was time to put a serving of both of those things on the same plate and get them out the door. Without further, let alone Freddy, Adu, here is the Un/Necessary Sports Research list of national telecast announcer milestones from February 2024.
For the sake of of setting the ground rules, we have five main lists: NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL in the U.S. and NHL in Canada. There are also three other lists that exist only by combining those five: NHL totals, totals in the four American leagues, and totals in the five leagues across the board.
Commentators are sorted into three groups – play-by-play, analysts and reporters – and each list has a total column as well. At the moment, these figures only count pro sports, not because I don't think college sports should count but because we had to draw the line somewhere because there are only so many hours to track this stuff. All data is taken from the 506 Sports Archive.
The stars of the NHL were out in full force in Toronto on Saturday, Feb. 3, even though the NHL All-Star Game took place at 3 p.m. local time. The four-team, 3-on-3 tournament counts as a single broadcast in our records because it’s still 60 minutes of hockey. Two-thirds of Rogers’ lead NHL crew moved up a leaderboard that day. Craig Simpson broke a tie with Harry Neale for the eighth-most appearances in NHL history, combining the U.S. and Canada, and the 16th-most appearances across our five main listings with his 1076th telecast. Kyle Bukauskas worked his 378th telecast as a reporter, passing Brian McFarlane for the ninth-most in our binational NHL records. Chris Cuthbert, the regular third man in that booth, helmed the telecast from the play-by-play position while analyst Kevin Bieksa and reporter David Amber made special All-Star Game appearances. Simpson had tied Neale on Jan. 27’s Maple Leafs-Senators telecast while Bukauskas tied McFarlane four days later on the Jan. 31 game between Nashville and Ottawa.
The following afternoon, the annals of broadcasting history shifted to London, and not the one that’s a couple of hours down the 401 away from Scotiabank Arena. At the Emirates Stadium in Holloway, on the north side of the English capital city, former Arsenal right back Lee Dixon broadcast his 380th Premier League fixture since NBC assumed broadcast rights in this country in 2013. That number represents an entire season of every match in the league or 10 seasons for a single club. Jon Champion and Graeme le Saux joined Dixon on the telecast.
Simpson edged his way past Neale again on Monday, Feb. 5, when the Maple Leafs hosted the New York Islanders as NHL regular-season play resumed. Again, the number was 1,076 appearances, but this time the category was different, counting only analyst appearances on NHL national telecasts to the U.S. or Canada. (Simpson was an ice-level reporter for ESPN on an Avalanche-Mighty Ducks game in 1998, which counted toward his overall total but not his analyst figure.) That gave Simpson sole possession of the number-two spot on the binational NHL analyst list, trailing only Pierre McGuire, and third place on the analyst list across all five main listings, also trailing Hubie Brown. For the second time in three days, Cuthbert joined Simpson across the Sportsnet family of networks; this time, Shawn McKenzie was the reporter.
Tuesday, Feb. 6, marked the fourth day in a row with a milestone as ESPN hockey analyst A.J. Mleczko moved up the American NHL rankings. Her 137th national broadcast as a color commentator, Avalanche-Devils on ESPN+ with John Buccigross, broke a tie with Darren Eliot for the 11th-most in our records. Mleczko, a two-time Olympic medalist, had tied Eliot on Jan. 23 when the Ducks hosted the Sabres.
Toronto has as good a claim as any city to being the ancestral home of national hockey broadcasting, since it was there that Foster Hewitt’s gondola hung in Maple Leaf Gardens to originate Hockey Night in Canada, and the city hosted a milestone for Hockey Night’s current lead commentator on Wednesday, Feb. 7. Chris Cuthbert became the third person in our records to handle play-by-play for 1,300 national NHL telecasts between the U.S. and Canada, reaching the plateau on a Stars-Maple Leafs telecast with Simpson and McKenzie. He trails Bob Cole and, at the time, Jim Hughson on the NHL list as well as Marv Albert, Dick Stockton, Kevin Harlan and Kenny Albert from the four main American lists.
Across the border in Boston, Mike Breen passed another longtime NBA broadcaster on the same night. The Hawks-Celtics game was Breen’s 1,085th national telecast between the NBA and NFL, pushing him ahead of Hubie Brown (a former Hawks coach) for the seventh-most appearances in our four American listings and 13th-most counting Canadian NHL work. JJ Redick was the color man and Andraya Carter reported. Breen had tied Brown on a Lakers-Knicks telecast the previous weekend with Doris Burke and Lisa Salters.
TD Garden was also the venue for a milestone the following night, albeit in a different sport and for a different country. Sportsnet reporter Dan Murphy, who primarily covers the Vancouver Canucks, reported on his 228th national telecast when Vancouver met the Bruins, passing Christine Simpson for the 13th most national reporterial repetitions in Canadian NHL history. John Shorthouse and Dave Tomlinson anchored the booth that night as they had when Murphy tied Simpson on Jan. 27 against Columbus.
The parade of milestones took a break on Friday, Feb. 9, but Hockey Night was at it again that weekend. Edmonton-based analyst Louie DeBrusk called the Oilers’ visit to Los Angeles on Saturday night: his 412th national NHL telecast to the U.S. or Canada broke a tie with McFarlane for 16th most for a colour commentator. Harnarayan Singh handled play-by-play and Scott Oake reported on that game after Jack Michaels and Gene Principe joined DeBrusk for the tying tilt in Las Vegas four nights earlier.
Early February saw a total of 11 milestones in a 10-day span which concluded with two more in a Calgary Flames road trip to the American portion of the East Coast. The Flames’ Sunday visit to the New York Islanders was the 192nd national NHL telecast of Ryan Leslie’s career, which moved him past Al Trautwig for 17th-most by a reporter between the U.S. and Canada. The next night in suburban Miami, colour man Greg Millen worked his 900th Canadian NHL telecast when the Flames visited the Panthers, which made Millen the ninth person to reach that mark. Play-by-play man Rick Ball called both bouts and was with Leslie and Kelly Hrudey when the former tied Trautwig on the Flames-Bruins game the previous Tuesday.
Following a midmonth slowdown that was helped in part by the NBA’s all-star break, Oilers-centric reporter and Prince of Puns Gene Principe got the derricks working again on Friday, Feb. 23 when he passed Frank Selke for the 11th-most appearances by a Canadian NHL reporter with his 264th game. That Wild-Oilers affair on the Albertan prairie was called from the booth by Michaels and DeBrusk, who had also been with Principe two nights earlier when Boston came calling and he tied Selke.
A colorful clash between the St. Louis Blues and the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday, Feb. 24, sent ESPN NHL reporter Leah Hextall up the leaderboard as well. (From 1979 to 2017, the Red Wings played in Joe Louis Arena: the building’s namesake, a Detroit native, was known as the Brown Bomber, which would have added to the colorful motif. The Red Wings have since moved to Little Caesars Arena, and anyway, we’re digressing.) That day, her 56th American national NHL telecast as a reporter allowed Hextall to pass Darren Pang for 10th place on that list. Bob Wischusen and Kevin Weekes called the game for ABC: Wischusen and the Blues were both involved in Hextall’s tying game, a Presidents’ Day matinee against the Maple Leafs, the previous Monday. Ryan Callahan handled color for the Monday game.
The dean of active NBA sideline reporters, Lisa Salters, reached her septuacentennial milestone later that night. The Celtics-Knicks game at Madison Square Garden on ABC was Salters’ 700th national telecast between the NBA and NFL: only Craig Sager has more sideline appearances in the four major American listings and Oake joins the list when we add Canadian NHL work. The game also broke a tie with Fox baseball insider Ken Rosenthal, who had 699 reporter credits at that point. Breen, Redick and Burke called the game with Salters: Breen and Burke also worked with her when she tied Rosenthal on the Feb. 10 Suns-Warriors game.
ESPN reporter Cassidy Hubbarth got in on the action on Sunday, Feb. 25, when she passed Heather Cox for ninth place on the NBA courtside reporter list by working her 182nd national telecast. Brown and Dave Pasch joined Hubbarth from the city of American independence as the 76ers hosted the Bucks. Hubbarth tied Cox on Feb. 11 with a Celtics-Heat game alongside Redick, Ryan Ruocco and Richard Jefferson.
As February drew to a close, Craig Simpson had lined himself up for another leaderboard pass, but that bit of detail will have to wait until this series moves along to March.
