New York Rangers TV voice Sam Rosen retiring after 2024-25 NHL season

Legendary New York Rangers play-by-play voice Sam Rosen announced plans to retire after the 2024-25 NHL season.

Rosen, who turned 77 years old on Monday, has been part of the Rangers broadcast crew since 1982, succeeding Jim Gordon as the team’s lead TV play-by-play voice prior to the 1984-85 season. Four decades later, Rosen is ready to retire , telling reporters he began thinking about the decision to walk away when his wife threw him a surprise 75th birthday party.

“Suddenly with friends around, you start thinking about, OK, how do you want to wind this up?” Rosen said Tuesday during a conference call with local reporters. “I kind of said, it’s getting to that stage where you want to wind up and go out on top. My feeling is that my performances have been good, and I’ve loved every minute of it. It’s a time where, as you get a little older, you miss some time with your family.

“Fans have been great and they’ve been so complimentary and they’ve inspired me,” Rosen continued. “I realize that I’ve touched a lot of people and it’s now time to say thank you very much and put a big, big bow on it because I think everyone is in agreement at the Garden and at the network that this will be a big finish and I’m hoping the Rangers will have a big year to cap it all off.”

Rosen was born in Germany and grew up in Brooklyn in the 1950s and 1960s as a fan of the New York Yankees, Knicks, Giants, and Rangers. The aspiring broadcaster broke in as Marv Albert’s backup with the Knicks in the late 1970s before ultimately becoming synonymous with the Rangers. And on June 14, 1994, Rosen’s voice would be forever associated with Rangers history, as he was on the call when they ended their championship drought with a Game 7 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.

“The waiting is over!” Rosen exclaimed. “The New York Rangers are the Stanley Cup champions. And this one will last a lifetime!”

The series aired nationally on ESPN, but 1994 was also the last Stanley Cup Finals where regional rights holders of the participating teams produced local broadcasts of the games, allowing Rangers fans to hear Rosen’s voice on the call.

“For me, it was more of a personal call than anything else,” Rosen said of his championship call. “It would last my lifetime. No matter what happened, if they won three more, no more, five more.

“I didn’t want it to say, ‘It would last my lifetime,’ but that was really the meaning, ‘It would last a lifetime’ for me and I’m certainly hoping that maybe we’ll go out with another one for this season.”

President and CEO of MSG Networks Andrea Greenberg said Rosen will be celebrated throughout his final season as the Rangers’ lead play-by-play voice.

“Sam has been an indispensable element of Rangers broadcasts for over four decades and he will forever be a part of our MSG Networks family,” Greenberg said. “We look forward to celebrating Sam throughout the upcoming season.”

A successor for Rosen has not been named, although radio voice Kenny Albert would seem to be the lead candidate if he wants the gig. Albert, however, already has a packed slate as TNT’s lead NHL voice, along with his NFL and MLB responsibilities for Fox. Don La Greca, who already fills in for Albert, could step in as the Rangers’ full-time radio voice.

[ Newsday ]

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