Any way you say it, Olympics PA announcer is world class 

MILAN -- A familiar voice boomed from the loudspeakers at Santagiulia Arena on Wednesday, when Team Sweden took on Team Italy in a preliminary round game at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

It was the same voice you hear at Colorado Avalanche games. But public address announcer Alan Roach alternated with an Italian PA announcer, doing a delicate dance in two languages, and when Roach said the name of Gabriel Landeskog -- the captain of Sweden and Colorado -- he pronounced it differently than he does in Denver.

“Gaab-ree-ELLE Land-es-KOOG,” he said.

He did the same thing with other Swedish names.

“It’s because you can go into the Milano Cortina app, and if you look at any of the hockey players, they went through and had each hockey player say his name and record it,” Roach said. “For an announcer, there’s nothing better. That’s better than any kind of pronunciation guide written in a media guide.

“So, every player said their name, and almost all of the Swedish players said their name differently than they’re announced every day in an NHL arena, and I think that’s really cool.”

Roach has one of the coolest voices and gigs in sports.

To say his voice is deep doesn’t do it justice. To call it the voice of God would be cliché. Asked how he liked his voice to be described, he said: “I don’t know. I’ve never been asked that question. I like it to be described as the guy who just announced another cool event.”

Roach, a 59-year-old who lives in Denver, currently serves as the PA announcer for the Avalanche and the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League. He has worked countless big events, including 18 Super Bowls and each Olympics since the 2002 Salt Lake Games (except the 2022 Beijing Games).

On Sunday, he was at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, for the Seattle Seahawks’ 29-13 win in Super Bowl LX. Five hours after the game, he flew from San Francisco to Newark, New Jersey. From there, he caught a flight to Milan.

He arrived at 7 a.m. local time Tuesday and was behind the microphone when Team USA defeated Team Canada 5-0 in women’s hockey in Santagiulia Arena.

On Wednesday morning, he studied the pronunciation of the Swedish men’s players to prepare for the game that night.

“It didn’t take that long,” he said. “There’s 25 names, and then I just write them down on the roster the way they sound, not the way they’re spelled.”

Roach remembered running into Peter Forsberg at the 2006 Torino Games, when Forsberg won gold with Sweden. He had been pronouncing Forsberg’s name for years in Denver when Forsberg played for the Avalanche or an opposing team.

“He told me that in Sweden, he pronounces his name ‘FORS-betty,’ and I started announcing it as ‘Peter FORS-betty,’” Roach said. “I wanted to do that in Denver, but everybody would be like, ‘What the …’ So, I never did.

“But Peter was the one who turned me on to that. Since then, pronunciations at the Olympics, no one has ever paid a whole lot of attention to it. This year, it’s the best it’s ever been, and to have all those recordings is amazing.”

As he left the rink after Sweden’s 5-2 win, Roach was thinking ahead.

“I have not gotten into Latvia and Slovakia yet,” he said. “I’m going to dive into those tomorrow.”