The Radio Voice Of the Buffalo Sabres

Rick Jeanneret

Not to get too sentimental, but when I was a kid I had this little train radio. When the Sabres weren't on TV, I would listen to games on it.

It was orange and blue, AM-only, with the volume and tuning control-wheels on the back. The monotone pitch was very high coming out of a very small speaker.



1971/72 Topps



When Rick Jeanneret began his announcing career on WGR back in 1971, this is how I was listening to the games. It was a season that featured Sabres like Gil Perreault, Rick Martin, Roger "the Dodger" Crozier, Eddie Shack and Gerry Meehan.

It was a time when radio was the key link between me and games, even though there was a good amount TV coverage.

We had a single black-and-white TV in our home (dad controlled it.) It had three channels, which was standard throughout the U.S., but we were lucky living in Buffalo, we could get channels from Canada, most notably, CBC's Hockey Night In Canada on Saturday nights.

It had dials on the front and clicked when you turned them to get to a channel. When the knob broke off, you'd use a fork to turn it. And the cool things about using knobs, if you couldn't get the channel clearly when you clicked it into place, you could ease it in between to get a better picture.

The picture itself was usually less-than-clear, the huge and heavy picture tube took a couple of minutes to "warm up," and if things didn't work out for picture clarity, you turned to the "rabbit-ears" antenna on top and moved it around, clicked it's internal box or put aluminum foil on the ends of the antennae.

All of this was done to go from a "polar bear in a snowstorm" picture to a semblance of one.

But, radio was always solid when it came to following the Buffalo Sabres.

The difference between radio and TV is as simple as the difference between audio and video. When it came to radio, the announcer had to put the fan on the scene with nothing more than his play-by-play call.

Rick Jeanneret's foundation was in radio before he came to TV, and he brought those radio announcer sensibilities with him.

On a national level, Jeanneret is known for some memorable calls--"May Day," "Lalalalalafontaine," "Wow, Double-Wow" and "Now Do You Believe" amongst them.

On a local level, Sabres-nation knows him for "top-shelf where mama hides the cookies," "MIlllllllerrrrrrrrrrrrr" and "we're going to ooooooverrrrrrrtime."

These are all "highlight" moments and even though some of his "shtick" like "The Population of Pomminville..." does wear on you, one thing you cannot take away from him is how he calls the game.

While announcers today rely on video to help them along as they call the game, Jeanneret calls the game like he did when he was doing radio-only--verbally putting every move on the ice into the microphone.

The Buffalo Sabres announced that Rick Jeanneret
will be working a reduced schedule, in this
40th season with the club.

 Listen to some announcers while watching a live-stream from other cities, and you'll hear plenty of dead-air as they use video as a crutch to help them catch up with the game. Jeanneret does very little of that because, coming from radio, he's always had to be on top of the game.

He also has a full grasp of rosters which is a far cry from a lot of today's play-by-play men.

Once again, go catch other announcers via live stream and you'll hear full mention of the home teams players, along with mentions of the opposition's stars or better known players, but fringe players--those third or fourth-liners--are not mentioned because the announcer has no idea who they are.

Jeanneret does know these players. He knows their numbers and he knows their names and he uses that to put his audience on the scene with his voice.

By no means is Jeanneret perfect. His voice isn't perfect nor is his style perfect. Nor is his look. He's anything but ESPN, Syracuse-alum perfect.

But that, to me, is a very endearing quality in vanilla sports-nation.

So...

For those fans outside of Buffalo who can't stand Jeanneret, sorry. If you were a fan growing up in Buffalo listening to him, he's woven into the fabric of our sports experience.

For those Buffalo fans who nit-pick by calling him out for his libation-infused exuberance or claim that he rode the "May Day" gravy-train for years; I guess you don't hear it the way I do--through 40 years of listening to him call Sabres games

To me, all the little nuances of him--both good and bad--make him human. His humanity allows him to love the game as a fan with all the joys and frustrations that come along with it.

That's how he calls the games. That's who he is on-air. That's it.