Doc And Jack

So Doc Emrick announced that he was retiring yesterday.

The legendary hockey broadcaster is 74 years old, so he's earned it. There haven't been too many big hockey moments in the last few decades where he hasn't been behind the mic, whether it was the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Winter Classic or the Olympics.

Back when TigerBlog was a kid, every announcer sounded like Doc Emrick did. Somewhere along the line, "hip, edgy and highly emotional" replaced "folksy and respectful" as the sportscasting norm.

To that end, TB has always liked the way Emrick calls a game. He's not making himself bigger than the event, or, for that matter, even part of the event. He never seemed to be driven by ego.

He also didn't go down the path that so many current broadcasters, even the really good ones, do. He never used a lot of words to say what could be said in a few words, or fancy words to say what could be said in simpler terms. 

He could be a little overly folksy, 

The key to being a good play-by-play announcer is preparation. In this regard, Emrick was beyond impressive, and that was never clearer than during the Olympics.

When he did NHL games, he would see the same players over and over, so there wouldn't be that many newcomers to have to research. In the Olympics, there would be a ton of non-NHL guys, many with difficult names to pronounce, and Emrick would know who they were and everything about them as if they all were his neighbors.

According to something TB read, Emrick did more than 3,750 hockey games. It made TB wonder how different venues there were in which he called a game.

TB does know one where Emrick did a game. Hobey Baker Rink.

It was in 2013, and it was a game between Princeton and Union. The game was televised by NBC Sports.

This game happened to fall during the 2012-13 NHL lockout, which began in September and then ended when the new collective bargaining agreement was ratified on Jan. 12, 2013.

The Princeton-Union game was played on Jan. 11, 2013. Because there were no NHL games to call, NBC Sports gave some college games to its top announces. Princeton was lucky to have Emrick on the game from Baker Rink. 

TigerBlog chose not to go to the game and instead to watch it on TV, just to hear Emrick do the game. He spoke about both teams, again, as if they were all his neighbors. He even found time to wish a happy birthday to Princeton's then-hockey contact Kristy McNeil, as if she was a cousin of his. 

That game, TB thinks, was Emrick's only encounter with Princeton Athletics. He could be wrong about that.

He does know that Jack Scheuer saw a ton of Princeton games, the overwhelming majority of which were not in Princeton.

Scheuer was a staple at the Palestra for, well, for long before TigerBlog ever walked in the building. He was the AP reporter for Big Five basketball forever, and TB would see him any time he was there for a Princeton-Penn game.

He was as much a part of the building as anyone. Maybe the only person TB can associate more with the Palestra than Jack Scheuer was his late friend John McAdams, the wonderful longtime public address announcer in the building (and for a million other buildings, including when he did Princeton football games at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium).

TB didn't know Scheuer as well as he know McAdams. He did know Scheuer well enough to say hello and have a quick chat every time he saw him. He knew him well enough to be saddened by the news that Scheuer passed away last week, at the age of 88.

Mike Jensen wrote a great piece about Scheuer in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week. It mentioned how Scheuer played in pickup games into his 80s at the building, and how he still shot the same set shot he did when he played at Frankford High, graduating in 1949. As he read that, TB pictured Pete Carril as he shot that same shot in his own pickup games in Jadwin Gym.

You can read Jensen's story HERE. 

So congratulations to Mike Emrick on his incredible career, and the best to him in retirement. And RIP to Jack Scheuer, another gentleman who had another great career. Walking into the Palestra will be a little different from now on.