Rick Jeanneret: 1942–2023

[PASabreFan]

1 hour ago, That Aud Smell said:

Is his PBP included in that compilation?

No. Oops. The entire game is on YT, and I watched the end. Search for Sabres Nordiques 1985.

[Marvin]

43 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

No. Oops. The entire game is on YT, and I watched the end. Search for Sabres Nordiques 1985.

I just found a UK broadcast of that game and of a Sabres-Jets game from the middle of 1985-6.

And now the Montreal game that eliminated the Sabres from the playoffs in April 1986.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Marvin
Added game

[That Aud Smell]

42 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

No. Oops. The entire game is on YT, and I watched the end. Search for Sabres Nordiques 1985.

Listening now from the start. Darling sounds fantastic. Just a sterling PBP guy. Plenty of juice and excitement. Not sure what you're hearing or not hearing.

[Marvin]

Listening to these old games reminds me that I hate, hate, hate the trend of chatter during game play.

[That Aud Smell]

Just now, Marvin said:

Listening to these old games reminds me that I hate, hate, hate the trend of chatter during game play.

Darling's call on that Quebec Game 5 was probably normal by his standards -- and yet it sounds just superb.

[PASabreFan]

Reality is setting in. I hope you'll indulge my little fantasy that I could have spoken at the memorial (a true fantasy as making a speech is actually my nightmare). I hope you'll all follow up with your own speech.

"In March of 1975, to quote Tom Golisano, I didn't know a hockey puck from a meatball. By June of that year, I was crying into a pillow while watching the final seconds of Game 6 against the Flyers slowly drain away.

I was nine years old.

It was Danny Gare sliding into the boards in overtime and Ted Darling, at first, who drew me into Sabres hockey. But when you're nine years old, you tend to jump from one thing to another. That summer it was baseball.

So there was no guarantee the Sabres would return to my wandering mind in the wintertime. Christmas 1975 changed everything. I got a little transistor radio for Christmas, and on the night after Christmas, I sat in my living room in Bradford, PA, not far from where Terry Pegula might have been sitting across the border in Olean, New York, and turned the dial this way and that. Emerging from the static came a downed electric line of a voice calling a classic Bruins at Sabres game at the Aud.

"Right on!" "Right on!" "Right on!"

I had no clue what Right On meant. Soon I figured out that it was not just a groovy expression from the 70s. It meant that Gerry Desjardins had made another save. I also soon figured out that the voice belonged to one Richard John Jeanneret.

From that day on, Rick and Sabres hockey were for me one and the same. I was a shy and withdrawn kid. Today we'd call it socially anxious. Back then, the word was loner. I didn't make friends easily, or even at times at all, but I let Rick into my life.

And from that day on, Rick inhabited my brain, during the game and before and after too. Suffice it to say, that to this day, mundane life events are called out in my own version of that electrifying voice. "Oh, brother, those eggs are scrambling noooow!"

Rick has been the voice I've heard the most in life, more even than my own father, and that's not a revelation that my dad and I were distant. Quite the opposite. It's just a matter of math. 48 seasons x 82+ games x 2.5 hours.

That's a lot of time to spend with one person.

Actually I never met Rick, although I once sneakily emailed him. Had we met for real, what would I have said to thank him for all those Right Ons? How could I have shown my appreciation for what now must be millions of memories?

I would have had only seven words, only seven.

Rick, thank you for being my friend."

Edited September 2, 2023 by PASabreFan

[Quint]

Still mourning Rick and will be for quite awhile.

[That Aud Smell]

On 9/1/2023 at 10:50 AM, PASabreFan said:

I would have had only seven words, only seven.

Rick, thank you for being my friend."

Please add this to your coffee table book of Sabres writings. I want an autographed first edition. I'm through you way all the time, what with regular trips to Cambria County.