NHL Broadcasting Legend Doc Emrick Announces Retirement

The voice of hockey, longtime NHL announcer Mike “Doc” Emrick, announced on Monday that he is retiring as a play-by-play broadcaster.

Emrick, 74, called 22 Stanley Cup Finals during his career and was the leading announcer for NHL games on NBC after taking a full-time role at the network in 2011. In addition to working for NBC, Emrick had stints at ESPN and ABC as well as Fox and CBS.

“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.”

Though he will no longer do play-by-play, Emrick will continue to write and narrate video essays as part of NBC’s NHL coverage, according to ESPN.

“Doc is a national treasure,” Sam Flood, an executive producer at NBC Sports, told The Post. “Simply put, he’s one of the best ever to put on a headset.”

Emrick received the nickname Doc after earning his PhD in broadcast communications from Bowling Green State University in 1976.

“Things change over 50 years, but much of what I love is unchanged from then to now and into the years ahead,” Emrick said in a statement on Monday morning. “I still get chills seeing the Stanley Cup. I especially love when the horn sounds, and one team has won and another team hasn’t, all hostility can dissolve into the timeless great display of sportsmanship — the handshake line. I leave you with sincere thanks.”