Emrick misses sports, sees games as 'an addition to life'

Mike "Doc" Emrick misses greeting people at the rink with a handshake and a hello, having conversations with everyone from players to coaches to the television crew and arena workers, and telling the inside stories he learns on the broadcast that night.

It's those things that have kept Emrick, the Hall of Fame play by play broadcaster for NBC Sports, yearning for hockey during the NHL season pause because of concerns about the coronavirus, and optimistically hoping for the League to relaunch at some point this season.
Emrick was a guest on this week's edition of the NHL @TheRink podcast, along with Philadelphia Flyers forward James van Riemsdyk.
"We realize, I think, that there are things that are far more important in life than sports, but we also realize too that people love these pursuits and they love the fact that we're involved in them, and that there is an addition to life that they bring," Emrick said. "And so we look forward to that time when we can get back to that."
Emrick talked specifically about the uniqueness, and strangeness, of working the game between the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks at United Center on March 11, the night before the NHL went on pause. It was then, he said, that he realized normalcy was gone, at least temporarily.
He couldn't shake anybody's hand. He wasn't allowed into the dressing room to sit and chat with the players, as he does after every morning skate. Interviews were done from a 6-foot distance.
It didn't stop Emrick from going after the stories he loves to tell, which on that night were of Chicago forward Brandon Hagel and defenseman Nicolas Beaudin, each making his NHL debut.
"I was able to talk to Brandon Hagel the night before on the phone, they arranged that for me, but I was having to sort of shout questions back and forth to get information on family members and so forth, because those are things I like to do when a player is playing in his first NHL game," Emrick said. "If it's an exclusive telecast, which ours was, that's probably the only record that person is going to have of it.
"Blackhawks coach] Jeremy Colliton started the two players and I wanted to try to get as much of that information out at the start of the game so that the only record they will have of the first NHL game will be one that Eddie [Olczyk] and I and Brian [Boucher] provided on NBCSN that night. I wanted to be sure that at least if I could get the family members names on that 25 or 30 years from now when Brandon Hagel is watching this one game, the first game that he ever played, and Nicolas Beaudin is watching this first game, that they at least knew who they were playing with. … I mean, what a thrill that is, and it's a thrill for me to be able to share that."
Emrick said until Tuesday he was passing his time in isolation by working with Kevin Allen, the former longtime hockey reporter for USA Today, on a book that will be released in the fall. They finished the project by their midnight deadline Tuesday.
"That has occupied a lot of my time because I'm a neophyte at this," Emrick said. "It is autobiographical, but it has a lot of hockey involved, a little bit of baseball, a little bit of basketball. But it's mostly my time around hockey. When it comes out in the fall anybody buying a copy will know that 100 percent of whatever comes to 'Doc' goes to the care and treatment of animals hands on."
Emrick said Allen has talked with him about doing a second book focused solely on his days calling games in the minor leagues, but he is hoping that he won't have time for that project in the coming months because he'd rather be in the arenas calling games, completing the 2019-20 season and seeing handshake lines at the end of each playoff series.
"I've spoken with nurses in normal times who have said that any time that there is an athletic event that is playing on television in hospitals the call button isn't used as often, and so not only are the patients focused more, but we also wind up getting a break," Emrick said. "So there is one thing that I think that sporting events on television or on radio provide that help the culture of America, and I think that is something that we're anxious to get back to. But only in its own time, only when it has become safe to do and we can all contribute to that safe time by doing what we're asked to do."
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