Hall of Fame Hockey Announcer “Doc” Emrick retires

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Longtime NHL announcer Mike "Doc" Emrick is retiring as a broadcaster Monday.

"I hope I can handle retirement OK, especially since I've never done it before," Emrick told the New York Post. "But I've just been extremely lucky for 50 years. And NBC has been so good to me, especially since the pandemic, when I was allowed to work from home in a studio NBC created.

"Now, into my golden years, this just seemed to be the time that was right."

Affectionately known as "Doc" for his doctorate in communications, Emrick, 74, has been the preeminent voice for NHL games on NBC and NBC Sports for 15 years. He served as the play-by-play announcer for the New Jersey Devils for 21 seasons.

Emrick's résumé includes calling 22 Stanley Cup Finals and winning eight Sports Emmy Awards for play-by-play, including seven straight from 2014 to 2020. He had stints at ESPN and ABC as well as Fox and CBS and at six Olympic Winter Games.

In 2008, Emrick was inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame, which awarded him the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to hockey broadcasting. In 2011, he was the first announcer inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.

He said "it seemed like it was time" to step away from full-time broadcasting to enjoy more time with his family while in his mid-70s. He said 100% of his proceeds from a book about his life and career coming out Tuesday will go to hands-on care of animals.

Emrick has spent the past four decades as a beloved part of the hockey community -- a rapid-fire storyteller known to the public for his countless verbs to describe the puck moving around a rink and to friends and colleagues for his warmth and personal attention to the sport and the people in it.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Emrick "didn't just master" announcing hockey, "he transformed it into art."

"The risk one takes in saying something about Doc Emrick is that you know he could have worded it better himself -- on the spur of the moment, with 20,000 screaming in his ears (or up to 105,000 in the rain, snow and/or bitter cold), to a national broadcast audience relying on him to get it just right," Bettman said in a statement

After calling an estimated 3,750 games during his career, Emrick will continue to write and narrate video essays as part of NBC Sports' NHL coverage.