A tribute to Jack Edwards: The Owner's Box, Ep. 18

Bruins' TV voice Jack Edwards has announced his retirement after 19 years. 

There has been a torrent of famous announcer retirements in recent days, with Celtics' TV voice Mike Gorman signing off with the Celtics' final regular-season game, Yankees' long-time announcer John Sterling calling it a career today, and then another famous name announcing his departure just a few hours ago, Bruins' TV voice Jack Edwards.

Of those three gentlemen, Jack Edwards is the only one I know personally. And it truly saddens me that he is giving up what he called his "dream job" after 19 years of calling Bruins games.

As a means of tribute, I am re-posting links to a podcast I did with Jack on March 30, 2020 -- just at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when all levels of sport were thrown into chaos by the disruption of the widespread illness. It was a far-ranging session, in which we spoke about his background in hockey, his passion for broadcasting, and what changes in televising the games the pandemic might cause. And he even gave me a few tips on how to be a play-by-play announcer, which at the time, my efforts were in their infancy.

I first met Jack when he came to WJAR-TV in Providence (Channel 10) as a weekend sports anchor many, many years ago. Our paths didn't cross that often over the years as he was a hockey broadcaster and I was a football writer, covering the Patriots for 42 years for The Sun Chronicle. But in my job, I met his wife, Lisa, who among her many jobs was a producer for the NFL Network and was frequently stationed in Foxboro when the Patriots were in their heyday.

It was through my friendship with Lisa that Jack and I became reacquainted. They even invited me to a Thanksgiving dinner at their home in Connecticut a few years back, when a quirk in the schedule meant that I didn't have a game to announce on that holiday for the first time since trading in my notepad for a microphone. I happily joined Jack, Lisa, their three children, and Jack's mother -- a brilliant and delightful woman who could light up a room well into her 90s. She passed recently, regrettably.

An anyone that watches the B's on TV knows, Jack has struggled with his voice recently. His enunciation has slowed and he sometimes has trouble getting words out. He recently told the Boston Globe that he's had a phalanx of medical tests and none of them have revealed any definitive cause for his struggles. He has soldiered through and continued to call games, but hockey is an incredibly fast-paced game and Jack always did an energetic, radio-style call, offering a fully-fleshed-out description of the action rather than just letting the pictures tell the story. 

It must be killing Jack to know he can't do the broadcast as he has done throughout his career. He's a youthful 67 (three years younger than I am), and I'm sure that when we did this podcast back in 2020, he anticipated many more years behind the microphone.

We've been fortunate in this region to have many great radio and TV announcers. I entered the radio audience with Curt Gowdy and Ned Martin on the Red Sox, Johnny Most on the Celtics, Bob Wilson on the Bruins and Gil Santos on the Patriots. I was fortunate enough to meet Santos in his second stint with the Patriots and develop a friendship with him, unknowingly picking his brain for pointers for a broadcasting career I didn't even know I would have at the time.

A lot of solid announcers have emerged in the Boston market over the years, and I would do them a disservice if I mentioned some and not others. The truly good ones stick around for years, and that's what happened to Jack Edwards. His preparation and delivery were exemplary. Some might quibble with some of his occasional soliloquys and a generous touch of homerism, but let's face it -- if you are the announcer for the Boston Bruins, your audience really wants you to love the Boston Bruins. It doesn't want a play-by-play guy to sit in the booth like some bland, nondescript soul that just trucked in from Albuquerque.

Jack Edwards gave genuine enthusiasm to his audience, as well as a deep love for the sport he called. I wish the best in the upcoming playoff series against the Maple Leafs, his last, and I wish him nothing but the best in his retirement.

Please enjoy this repeat presentation of Episode 18.