A Belated Tribute to John Davidson, The Best Color Analyst Ever

It’s hard to emote on broadcasters who didn’t work for your own local team.  To write a tribute to them seems phony.  But let me tell you, as a kid living in New York metro area, John Davidson’s voice was THE hockey authority.  The fact is, if you listened to him, you came out smarter as a hockey fan after whatever game you watched.  You can’t say that about every color announcer.

The sheer factor of how many networks hired him (He has to be one of the few people to ever work for CBS, FOX, NBC and ABC, as well as VERSUS, SportsChannel America, CBC, OLN and of course MSG) is a tribute to how relevant he stayed to hockey fans in this country, and how hard he worked at keeping himself a top level analyst.

It’d probably validate JD’s entire body of work to state that if he ever stepped down as president of the St. Louis Blues (because you don’t fire a man like JD) he would likely go back to being the #1 voice of the NHL in America on network and cable TV.  I’d give a lot to hear him with Sam Rosen again on a Rangers telecast, and double that to hear him call games with Doc Emrick again on national television.

The thing about Emrick and Davidson’s telecast is that they were the most informed, prepared broadcast crew you could find on television.  The NHL needs to realize that knowing the simple, fantastic history of this sport, it’s exciting present and it’s unknown future are all we require, rather than outrageous jingoism and general boring stupidity.  That’s what you’d get from JD.  That’s what we deserve.