And, oh, how you loved him back. Both on Friday and for 51 years.
“I thought, ‘I love you’ kind of sums it up,” Jeanneret said as he hit reporters during the first break of the Sabers’ vibrant 4-3 win over Nashville. “It means everything to me… It’s just something that crossed my mind. I didn’t know how to end it. Honestly not. I had to speak and I had to say something. And I thought that was the best way to end it. So I did.
You’ve looked at the ice and seen so many of his old broadcast partners. Jim Lorentz was down there. That was Harry Neale. And Mike Robitaille, Larry Playfair and Danny Gare too. Jeanneret was particularly touched when she reunited with Sheila, Ted Darling’s widow, and his son Joel, a longtime manager of Hockey Night Canada. There were a few dozen former players.
The Buffalo Sabers honored longtime play-by-play announcer Rick Jeanneret in a pregame ceremony Friday at the KeyBank Center. Jeanneret is retiring at the end of the month after 51 years with the Sabers.
“It was wonderful,” he said. “Seeing all the people that have come back to it, all the alumni guys and all the former broadcasters I’ve worked with over the years is pretty special too. So it’s terribly beautiful. Knowing that they had my back, so to speak, when I spoke up there.”
Current partner Rob Ray brought the house down when he represented the alumni by simply saying, “You deserve to be in the rafters just as much as anyone who has ever worn the uniform.”