Jeanneret to be honored by Sabres before, during game against Predators

Rick Jeanneret said he has always felt at home in the Buffalo Sabres broadcast booth. But he never would have guessed he'd be there for more than half a century.

"It's been a great living," the 79-year-old said this week. "There's only 32 of these jobs and I've been fortunate to have had one of them.
"I just had no idea that I'd be doing this for 51 years."
Jeanneret, who called his first Sabres game on Oct. 10, 1971, and will retire after he calls his last April 29, will be honored by Buffalo before and during its game against the Nashville Predators at KeyBank Center on Friday (7 p.m. ET; MSG-B, BSSO, ESPN+, NHL LIVE).
"RJ Night" will feature the Sabres raising a banner for Jeanneret to the rafters of the arena in a pregame ceremony. Buffalo players will wear RJ patches on their jerseys and there will be tributes to Jeanneret throughout the game.
The longest-tenured broadcaster in the NHL began on the radio side with the Sabres for their second NHL season, calling a 2-1 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins. He moved to TV in 1995, replacing Ted Darling. His last game will be against the Chicago Blackhawks at home.
According to some of his broadcasting peers, his longevity is one of many traits that has made Jeanneret a legend in the business.
"He's been fabulous, just fabulous," said Bob Cole, the voice of "Hockey Night in Canada" from 1973-2019. "He deserves every accolade he gets, including the honor the Buffalo Sabres are giving him."
Jeanneret is a member of the Sabres Hall of Fame, the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame and the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame. He was the recipient of the 2012 Foster Hewitt Memorial Award, which acknowledges the top hockey broadcasters and gets them a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
To mark his special day, NHL.com enlisted the opinions of four other Hewitt Award winners: Cole (1996 winner), Mike Lange (2001), Mike Emrick (2008) and Joe Bowen (2018).
Lange, known for quirky sayings like "Scratch my back with a hacksaw," called Pittsburgh Penguins games for 46 years, retiring after last season.

Emrick retired in 2020 after a 47-year career broadcasting professional hockey, including the last 15 as the lead play-by-play voice for the "NHL on NBC." He was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2017.
Bowen holds the title of "The Voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs" and has called more than 3,000 of their games. The 70-year-old is still at it and is best known for his catch phrase "Holy Mackinaw!" when the excitement on the ice reaches a fever pitch.
Here are some of their thoughts on Jeanneret:
The call Rick seems to be best known for came during Game 4 of the Sabres-Boston Bruins Stanley Cup First Round in 1993 when Buffalo's Brad May scored the series winner in overtime, igniting him to yell "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!" How iconic a moment was that for a broadcaster, and what did you think when you heard those words?
Cole: "It was amazing. The best part of it: it wasn't written down on a piece of paper. He hadn't prepared for it. It came from the heart. Raw emotion. It was great."
Bowen:"Obviously the Mayday one was memorable. He had others too: 'La-la-la-la-Lafontaine' for Pat Lafontaine is another one. Again, the skill of it was that it wasn't rehearsed. I mean, I get asked all the time, like he's been too, if we write those things down and then spring them when the time is right. He's always said no, and so have I. You can't. It just pops into his head. And when you have a fertile imagination like he does, it results in some great calls."
Lange: "That Mayday one is probably his signature one and I enjoyed it a lot. I love it. Here's the thing. I encourage young broadcasters to be different. You don't have to be like me. You don't have to repeat some of my sayings like "Elvis has left the building." But you can also create your own personality. I know in this world of podcasts everyone wants to sound the same. Rick never did. And he still doesn't. And that's great."
Emrick: "The Mayday call was great. It couldn't have been a better choice. It was an all-timer, partly because of the lack of success the Sabres had had against Boston leading into that series. And here was a guy in May you probably would not have picked to score the OT winner. The call was brilliant. And it will live in history as one of the great ones ever done by a hockey announcer."
WATCH: [MAY DAY! A Goal Call Buffalo Will Never Forget | Sabres Memories]
Is that one of the reasons he's been so iconic? His ability to call a game outside the box, sort to speak?
Lange: "Exactly. And you have to remember this too: In the early 1970s, when both of us were getting momentum in our careers, radio was a much more powerful medium than it is now. It was kingpin. Now people go to TV and their phones and computers. They don't think much about radio. But that was predicated on what radio had been in the 1970s and even before that. Think of all the great baseball announcers of the time. And then he moved into TV and brought his own unique style with him."
Bowen: "I think you have to be like that and bring some personality to the microphone under those circumstances. Not all 82 games are Rembrandts; there are a few Picassos in there too. So you'd better be entertaining somebody or someone else is going to say, 'All right, we'll deal it out.'"
Cole: "Rick did a great job with the game. He wasn't forcing things at you. He was in a great hockey mood when the game started and carried it right to the end."
Emrick: "My hat's off to him for entertaining Sabres fans all those years. He's a big part of their history, a rich part. Think about all the greats there. The 'French Connection' (line) of Gilles Perreault, Rick Martin and Rene Robert. Danny Briere. Alex Mogilny. Moments like Mayday."
How big a role do you think he's played all these decades in being a big part of the sporting fabric in Buffalo?
Bowen: "I mean, they're having a Rick Jeanneret Night. This is not some guy who scored 50 goals or led the team in scoring. It's Rick Jeanneret. And they're going to put a banner up in that building with a microphone on it. God bless 'em. Because that's the type of personality he's always been. And that's the type of personality they have fallen in love with over the years."
Emrick: "It's terrific what they're doing for him. Especially because I think it means a lot for Rick because he's up there with the 'French Connection' and so many other legendary Sabres. He's a legendary Sabre because he's been part of so many great moments in their history, not just for this generation but generations before that."
Lange: "It's great for him. We've had a lifelong friendship. We've had parallels too. We've both called games for teams in smaller markets that are sports crazed. I only wish every broadcaster had the opportunity to go through four series and call a Stanley Cup champion. I had the privilege of doing that a number of times. I wish Rick had the chance to enjoy that special moment. But he's going to get one Friday and he deserves it. He's all class. Always has been."'