What's Up, Doc?

Hockey's back, and I'm sure you haven't noticed.

It's a sport for the die-hard fans. All this expansion and new rules and talk of courting the casual fan and making it more TV-friendly doesn't impress me. Hockey should be a cult sport. For Canadians and beer-drinking yahoos from Detroit and Philadelphia.

As a Devil fan, I've seen some of the best hockey in recent years. A disciplined, defense-first passionate bunch. But even with three Stanley Cups , the best goalie in the league and the best general manager in any sport, the greatest joy of watching New Jersey isn't on the ice or in the front office. It's play-by-play announcer Mike "Doc" Emerick.

In a single period of a recent game, I was able to compile the following list of uniquely precise terms he used to describe the movement of the puck:

caromed
plucked
shuffled
shoveled
whacked
swatted
pitchforked
foisted
feathered
ricocheted
touched
spirited
sailed
slapped
wristed
forehanded
backhanded
thrown
deflected
won
knifed
spun
cleared
floated
finessed
drubbed
nubbed
batted
filtered
kept
stripped
walked
flied
sent
given
jabbed
twirled
tapped
swung
carried
blocked
angled
slithered
dealt
ripped
lost
cleared
banged
chipped
stashed
stoked
jammed
fed
yanked
lobbed
hurried
hammered
dropped
chopped
poked
knocked
skipped
laid
flipped

If not for whistled stops in the action, I’m sure there would have been more.

Doc quite simply is the best in his profession. In any sport. The pace and unpredictability of hockey play-by-play make it the most demanding of all such jobs and Emerick leaves all others in the dust.

With his unfaltering command, presence and a seemingly endless supply of descriptive words and phrases at his disposal, he could provide eyesight to the blind. His polish and professionalism offer a solid foundation for welcome insight offered by the folksy delivery of partner Glenn “Chico” Resch.

Doc is eminently aware of the moment. His voice rises in tense times of exciting games and doesn’t pander to the audience with false enthusiasm during choppy play in a 0-0 tilt against The Thrashers. Unlike ESPN’s Stanley Cup voice Gary Thorne, every goal isn’t delivered with the animation of a double-overtime Cup winner.

And all of this is packaged in the honest, sincere delight with which he delivers every broadcast. “Hope you’re enjoying the game at home tonight—we sure are,” he often says with an audible smirk. And when you stop to think about the timing of these statements and the smile that certainly accompanies them, he clearly is paying more than lip service. He is paying humble respect and gratitude to the fortune and gifts that permit him to make a living doing something he loves.

And Devils fans couldn’t be luckier. Though I'm sure you haven't noticed.