Commitment To His Kraken Calling 

John Forslund leaned out of his Climate Pledge Arena broadcast booth and surveyed the on-ice action below, hovering over a desk containing the latest version of a spiral notebook that’s been his work-in-progress partner for 50-plus years.

Forslund usually stands and leans when calling play-by-play, and this night’s preseason Kraken game against the Edmonton Oilers was no exception. As for the notebook, containing player details scrawled in cryptic shorthand concocted during Forslund’s 1970s youth spent “calling” televised Boston Bruins games into a tape recorder in his family’s living room, the 63-year-old rarely glances at it.

“It’s all up here,” Forslund said, pointing at his forehead. “All committed to memory.”

But he’ll nonetheless meticulously jot down notes about both teams two, even three games ahead of time, the exercise ingraining details in his brain as part of his preparation ritual. He’ll watch video clips of all nightly NHL games, seeking line combinations, tendencies, and player numbers to practice the game call in his head.

Forslund, on Thursday night, begins his fifth season calling Kraken television broadcasts, doing so now on the team-run Kraken Hockey Network. But, Forslund’s second foray of breaking in fans in a new NHL market remains relatively nascent compared to his journey getting here; borne of learning on the fly but also dealing with the unexpected.

“I write all of this down, but in the end, I share maybe three percent of it with the audience,” Forslund said, pointing at dozens of notebook entries in multicolored ink containing words, numbers, and symbols across perfectly lined columns. “When I was young, I was going to prove everything that I knew and prove I’d come prepared. But I later realized it’s more palatable for fans to hear you describe the game than bog them down with all these stats and endless talk about points streaks and things of that nature. Now, if I give them one salient point they can take away in a game, then that means something.”

He paused before continuing. “But these are still important for me because if something happens with a player and I need information, I know it’s there. There’s a comfort in that.”

Preparing for the unexpected helps Forslund feel confident and be himself on-air, a commitment to authenticity he long ago deemed vital. Just as he learned from his career’s outset about how the unexpected can blindside.

He’d collected his first broadcasting paycheck in January 1985 at age 22 after working a game for the AHL team in his Springfield, Mass. hometown, about 90 miles outside of Boston. Forslund brought it home that night to show his father, Ralph, at his parents’ house, where he still lived, but had gone out beforehand with his then-fiancée-now-wife Natalie, so dad was asleep when he arrived.

Forslund was awakened early the next day by screams from his mother, Yolanda. His dad, a 59-year-old former U.S. Marine corporal in World War II who’d started his own automotive paint business, had suffered a heart attack in his sleep.

Forslund was certified in CPR and tried frantically to revive him. But his father died in his arms.

“He was my best friend,” Forslund said.

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The “shattering” loss sent Forslund into a depression, though he continued calling Springfield AHL games on the radio and television after taking a week off. He worked through his grief, using his fledgling career in hockey as a tribute to the man who’d introduced him to the sport.

They’d been at his aunt’s house for Mother’s Day on May 10, 1970, when Forslund, who’d just turned 8, watched on TV as Bobby Orr scored in overtime to deliver the Bruins’ first Stanley Cup in 29 years. Dan Kelly on CBS called that iconic Boston Gardens goal, and it “sparked” something inside Forslund that made him want to do that job.

“I didn’t know how I was going to do it,” Forslund said. “But that’s where it all started.”

Forslund and his father, the next season, turned down the sound to televised Bruins games. From there, Forslund did play-by-play while his dad was the color commentator. His dad’s buddies showed up to watch them.

His father often worked long hours at his paint company, and so their nighttime commentary was how they bonded. On weekends, they’d attend Springfield Indians AHL games together.

Forslund supplemented their makeshift living room broadcasts with information from player notes he’d write down beforehand. At first, it was so he could match players to their numbers, as there were no names on team jerseys back then.

“The one thing God gifted me with was a photographic memory,” Forslund said. “I always was a good memorizer. And I could also get up in front of my class and speak. And those two skills gave me what I needed for the foundation of this job.”

Forslund began developing his broadcast cadence listening to Bruins play-by-play man Fred Cusic, then Danny Gallivan and Bob Cole on a local station carrying Hockey Night in Canada’s feed from CBC. Father and son continued home broadcasts for years ahead of Forslund attending Springfield College and later pursuing a master’s degree in sports management at Adelphi University in New York.

His parents were optimists, encouraging Forslund’s sports dreams. His mother got on Forslund about not reading enough, so he soaked up as many hockey history books as he could by renowned author Stan Fischler and others.

While getting his master’s degree in New York, Forslund had been a prep school baseball coach on Long Island and was offered a full-time job there. Forslund had played baseball throughout his youth, sometimes on teams coached by his father, so the offer intrigued him.

But he had to do a sports internship before graduating. Though he hadn’t majored in broadcasting, the news director at his college TV station heard a tape of Forslund voicing over the 1981 Super Bowl for an elective class and encouraged him to pursue that field. Forslund sought an internship that did that, becoming a finalist for a West Point job hosting a coach’s show ahead of the 1984 Army-Navy football game.

But Forslund didn’t get it. Instead, an acquaintance in Springfield who knew the AHL team’s owner arranged an interview with the hockey club. Forslund got an unpaid internship that included part-time broadcast work as a color commentator. Within months, it morphed into a full-time gig. That’s when Forslund brought his first paycheck home to his father.

But now, his father gone just as the career he’d fueled within his son was starting, Forslund found himself on long, lonely team bus rides to opposing cities, pondering what it all meant.

Forslund’s father had been a prisoner of war in Japan and received a Purple Heart for combat wounds suffered while fighting with the USMC Sixth Division in the Pacific. But he hadn’t let it darken him outwardly. Instead, he’d pushed beyond wartime trauma, married his childhood sweetheart, and moved back home to Springfield to raise a family. He had a “Hey, hey, whaddya say?” greeting for anyone he’d meet the first time, or while coaching Forslund’s youth baseball teams to keep things upbeat.

One year after his father’s death, Forslund, still struggling with it, had become Springfield’s play-by-play man and used his father’s expression on-air to celebrate a goal. And he continued using it as his career began taking shape.

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For a kid from New England, the Hartford Whalers were as good as the NHL got beyond Boston. The Whalers joined during the NHL’s 1979-80 merger with the World Hockey Association and in 1991 hired Forslund as public relations director. Forslund, at the time, would do anything for an NHL jump, and the job – though not his favorite – did include radio color commentary work alongside longtime Hartford play-by-play man Chuck Kaiton.

Forslund’s final years in Springfield had helped his booth confidence enough to win the Ken McKenzie Award for the AHL’s top broadcaster/publicist in 1989. Springfield’s coach, former NHL player Jimmy Roberts, had even arranged for him to meet boyhood idol Kelly – whose call of Orr’s 1970 Stanley Cup overtime winner sparked Forslund’s initial play-by-play interest.

“Dan took the time and gave me the advice to never ‘sell down’ a moment,” Forslund said of Kelly. “In other words, even if you’re working for a team and the other team scores, don’t downplay the goal-- elevate it.”

Finally, after four years doing Whalers PR, the team’s TV play-by-play commentator, Rick Peckham, left for Tampa Bay, and Forslund replaced him in 1995. Forslund remained in the booth the next quarter century, following the team from Hartford to Carolina in 1997 and calling the Hurricanes’ debut Stanley Cup Final run in 2002 and first and only championship in 2006.

The following 2006-07 season, still working on Hurricanes games, Forslund did his first national TV broadcast with the Versus network ahead of its rebranding under the NBC umbrella. Forslund got to know lead NBC announcer Mike “Doc” Emrick, who called 15 Cup Finals for the network and “became like a mentor” to him on everything from respecting his craft to cadence and interacting with color commentators.

Forslund had long worked on a unique cadence, modeled slightly after Cole’s style on Hockey Night in Canada -- especially the “energy of how his voice could carry a rush” as it headed up the ice.

“That’s the beauty of hockey,” Forslund said. “It’s not like other sports. I’ve done basketball and I’ve done football. Those are different in terms of the style and the mechanics of a broadcast and how you use your (on-air) partner.”

Around this time, Forslund began working NBC games with color man Eddie Olczyk, whom he’d met as an NHL player a decade prior. Olczyk said Forslund has since evolved to “a great feel for calling the game” and keeping him and JT Brown involved during Kraken broadcasts.

“I find that all great broadcasters – and Johnny is a great broadcaster – are able to include their partner or partners,” Olczyk said. “You get them where they want to go and know what to ask.”

Olczyk recognized early on that Forslund’s detailed preparation, whether studying game clips or inserting player details into his notebook, placed him in an elite field.

“His work in getting up into the finest details is where Johnny ranks up there with the best in all of sports – not just in hockey,” he said. “He’s able to have a retention where he keeps that detail on the tip of his tongue, or his notes, and then just adds a little nugget…it just takes it to another level.”

Forslund’s prep work came in handy while still with the Hurricanes on Mar. 17, 2015, when Andrew Hammond, an obscure, late backup goalie addition from the minors by the Ottawa Senators, wound up beating Carolina 2-1 in overtime. Forslund had been told beforehand not to worry about Hammond even playing but still took notes from Senators goalie coach Rick Walmsley about Hammond’s “Hamburglar” nickname from Bowling Green college days.

“He ended up playing, and so I had that information about the ‘Hamburglar’ and all those sorts of things,” Forslund said. “And he went on to become a bit of an urban legend for a short time. The point is, a backup goalie for one regional game you’re doing is not a big deal. You could not even worry about it, but luckily, I did.”

But no matter how prepared, Forslund could still get blindsided.

On March 25, 1997, he broadcast a 4-0 Whalers loss in which Colorado goalie Patrick Roy made 46 saves. Forslund and his wife drove home afterwards, flipped on the local TV news, and learned the Whalers were moving to Carolina. Their son, Matthew, was only two months old, but the Forslunds were hurriedly forced into a decision; uprooting their lives overnight from longtime Northeast roots.

Twenty-three years later, he’d be blindsided again. And this time, Forslund would relocate across the country to take a Kraken job sight unseen.

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Forslund once said he’d “never get over” the Hurricanes’ July 2020 decision to cut ties. At the time of his departure, he and color commentator Tripp Tracy were local Raleigh, N.C. institutions viewed among the NHL’s best broadcast duos.

But new ownership had already cut longtime radio play-by-play voice Kaiton in a contract dispute. Forslund was asked to take a pay reduction, which he refused. And just like that, it was over.

Former Hurricanes captain Ron Francis, who’d known Forslund for years both as a player and later a team executive, had been fired as Carolina’s GM two years prior. He’d since been hired as the Kraken’s GM and phoned Forslund to see how he and his family were doing. Forslund, as expected, had been knocked off-center. Though he still had national NBC duties, calling games nightly for a team had been his life’s work.

“I told him that if he was interested, I’d put in a word for him in Seattle,” Francis said. “I’d gotten to know him well in Carolina and thought very well of him. I had nothing but good things to say about what he did there.”

Francis spoke to CEO Tod Leiweke, who reached out to Forslund.

“I’d been a big fan of his,” Leiweike said. “But for a while, I thought we had some competition.”

The Tampa Bay Lightning were also courting Forslund, ironically because onetime Whalers broadcaster Peckham – whose departure for Tampa paved the way for Forslund’s play-by-play in Hartford 25 years prior – had just retired. But they couldn’t find a fit. Forslund interviewed with the Kraken by video, given ongoing COVID-19 concerns, then joined the Kraken in January 2021 before even visiting the city.

Forslund cherished joining another franchise in a fledgling NHL market where every broadcast would highlight new firsts. After an initial season with Brown in the booth, the Kraken snagged Olczyk when his Chicago Blackhawks deal expired and reunited the national duo locally. Brown moved to the penalty box area to complete a three-man booth.

Some fans initially sensed animosity within the Forslund-Olczyk combo. They didn’t realize it was two old pals having fun on-air. Both alternate driving one another to and from games, and Olczyk said their on-air banter mimics their real-life relationship.

“We love each other,” he said. “We like to be quick-witted. Do we go off the rails sometimes? One hundred percent. But if anybody’s watching the broadcast, hopefully they’re entertained.”

Olczyk feels Forslund’s driving is somewhat ultra-conservative.

“He’s an awful driver,” Olczyk said. “I can say that on the record. If there’s a two-lane road and there’s 48 cars in the left lane and only seven in the right lane, he wants to stay in the left lane. I’m like ‘Just get over and let’s gain 35 cars right here. Like, what are you doing?’

“We argue, we raise our voices in the car. And that’s what we do on the air. We’re at peace with how we call the game. But we also want to entertain.”

That they did the next night on-air during last week’s preseason Edmonton game. Forslund discussed Olczyk driving him to the arena.

“There was a situation tonight…Eddie did nothing wrong,” Forslund told third commentator Brown. “It’s just a little risky and slightly aggressive, and I didn’t feel well when I got here. I’m feeling a little better now, but not good. Not good.”

Forslund added, “He said hello to a Kraken fan. Very nice. He just honked the horn at him. I ducked down. I was under the seat by then.”

After a commercial break, Olczyk said: “I’d like to defend myself…I’m getting a lot of texts about the accusations here.”

To which Forslund chirped: “Well, sometimes you have to own it.”

Prompting Olczyk to add: “I’ve been with you, and you need to go to the Len Scaduto Driving School in the suburbs of Chicago.”

Forslund scoffed and told commentator Brown, “JT, that’s the real deal. That’s where our man here went to driving school…I hope they’re still in business.”

Later, between periods, Forslund and Olczyk laughed about the exchange – especially the off-the-cuff Scaduto Driving School quip, which referred to an actual place owned by a former record-setting running back at Northern Illinois University who passed away in May at age 93.

Forslund later leaned in and confided, “I can’t do that with just anybody. But Edzo is great at what he does. He has that timing down when he banters. We both do. That’s what makes it work.”

But they also help each other out. When Ryan Winterton scored a shorthanded goal against the Oilers, Olczyk remarked on-air he was pretty sure Winterton had scored 18 goals in the AHL last season.

Forslund promptly glanced at his spiral notebook, traced a finger down the page to Winterton’s number – he doesn’t write player names, only their numbers to better memorize them in advance – and confirmed 18 goals was correct. It was the only time all night Forslund checked his book.

“But it was there when I needed it,” Forslund said.

Just as the Kraken were when he sought a new hockey home. Forslund still has his house in Raleigh, but also keeps one in the Seattle area, as well as a summer property in his beloved New England. He considers all three places part of a broadcast journey still unfolding.

Beyond his “Hey, hey, whaddya say?” call for Kraken overtime or game-clinching goals, he modified a “That’s hockey, baby” saying into “That’s Kraken hockey, baby” for electrifying plays. He’s had quite a few signature moments already, including Riley Sheahan’s first Kraken goal ever in preseason, initial career goals by Matty Beniers and Shane Wright, and Jordan Eberle’s overtime winner against Colorado in Game 4 of the 2023 playoffs.

“To work for an organization like this from Day 1 is a privilege,” Forslund said. “I get to be a part of their vision and mark all their history like I did for 23 years in Carolina. To get a second chance to do that just doesn’t happen. So, I’m very grateful for it.”

A second chance that arrived only once he was again blindsided. But which his years of preparation had steeled him for.