Mishkin brings usual energy to Bolts TV broadcast for first time

Listeners of the Tampa Bay Lightning in-game broadcasts on Bolts Radio have become accustomed to one of the most educational and energizing calls across NHL radio dials.

They know what to expect from play-by-play voice Dave Mishkin—passion, plenty of energy and riveting goal calls that echo through speakers across the country.

On Thursday night in Vancouver, Mishkin positioned himself behind a microphone of a different volume, voicing the Lightning to a 6-2 win over the Canucks on the Scripps Sports television broadcast. It marked his first television play-by-play call for the Lightning in his 24 seasons with the team.

“Yes, it's different, and it's more exposure…but I'm appreciative,” Mishkin said. “I'm appreciative that I've been well received in the market and had a chance to do something that I love to do for as long as I've had the chance to do it.”

Mishkin will also call this weekend’s back-to-back series in Alberta, filling in for usual broadcaster Dave Randorf for Saturday’s 10 p.m. ET game in Edmonton as well as Sunday’s 8 p.m. game in Calgary. Randorf is calling the same games on the Lightning Audio Network.

Since joining the Lightning in 2002, Mishkin has mixed in some television and simulcast hockey play-by-play calls for various networks, commentating high school hockey, prospect 3-on-3 tournaments as well as the 2015 ECHL All-Star Game on livestreams.

Before making the jump to the NHL, Mishkin called his final regular season game with the Hershey Bears of the AHL alongside U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame broadcaster Mike “Doc” Emrick on television.

Now two decades later, he’s got an NHL television debut to his name.

A different microphone but the same Mishkin magic

Mishkin called his NHL playcalling debut “smooth” thanks to those around him as he reflected on the Vancouver game one day later.

“On Radio, it's a far smaller operation. On the road it's me on the air, an engineer sitting next to me in the away booth and somebody back in Tampa. That's basically it. I'm basically in a boat with an oar…it’s just a much smaller crew, even at home,” Mishkin said.

That proverbial boat crew looks much different for an on-screen production.

“A telecast is more like a yacht ship in you've got the captain, the engineer and the person working down here swabbing the deck. On a road trip we travel for TV with a producer, a director, a graphics/stats person and a replay person. Those are four people in addition to Dave (Randorf) and Brian (Engblom). And then you’ve got other people in the truck. What I would say about the experience is all the people that were involved have so much experience and made the transition very smooth, and I’m very grateful for that.”

He met with St. Louis Blues play-by-play announcer Chris Kerber on Thursday as the teams were staying in the same hotel in Canada. The broadcasters shared a coffee while talking through the adjustment to television.

Kerber told him the calls are similar, adding that nobody listening to hockey has ever called an announcer too descriptive. Mishkin on radio typically focuses more on the puck, where television is more of a back-and-forth live interaction with the color analyst such as Brian Engblom.

“I am very descriptive on radio. I didn't need to talk as much or as descriptively when the picture is showing where the puck is…I do tend to stay on the puck more, and the analyst talks when there's a whistle. With TV, you don't need to do that. Last night Brian was talking while the play was going on, which is good because you have a picture there, and I'm guiding the play along. At times, I was on every pass, but I wasn't saying, ‘right wing, left wing, near corner, far corner.’ It was more just identifying the player and saying what the player was doing.”

Another major difference was having a TV producer speaking in his ear to guide him in and out of commercial breaks or advertisement reads, but he said the crew and producer Brad Bartle were “fantastic”.

Despite Thursday’s game in Canada featuring a 10 p.m. start here in Florida, fans likely had no trouble staying awake and focused as Mishkin put a voice behind Tampa Bay’s 6-2 win.

With the lopsided score, Mishkin got to mix in some of the creative wisdom he shares on the Power Lunch podcast for Lightning Audio Network, diving deeper into some hockey topics away from strictly on-ice plays.

“If I'd been doing the game on radio, I would have been doing it by myself. One of the things that I felt we were able to do on a telecast particularly is the second half of the third period, we could do the game but also chat about some stuff, like the Kucherov/McDavid component. We got into some discussions while the game was going on, which is different for me, as I'm usually not doing that on radio. I feel it's important to paint a picture, so I thought about that and really enjoyed that.”

There were plenty of goals on Thursday.

And despite him holding a different microphone and sitting in a new booth, each goal call was accompanied by Mishkin’s unmistakable high-octane trademark shout of ‘SCOREE’.

No matter the medium, that energy won’t go anywhere. You can expect more of the same for this weekend’s Canadian back-to-back.

“I called the game the same way from how zoned in I was to what was happening. But I’m pretty zoned in on radio. So, it's not like I got more zoned in, more tuned in to what was happening because the medium was different,” Mishkin said. “I didn't call the same game in what I said and how descriptive I was, but the intent and how intense I was in following the play and being tuned into what was happening on the ice, that was the same. I'm not sure I know how to call a game any differently.”