Chairman How's Glorious Army
Significantly Lowering the Bar Since 2008.

I would be remiss if I didn’t take at least a brief moment to mention the unfortunate passing of Hall of Fame broadcaster Fred Cusick on the 15th of this month.

For those of you too young to remember, before we had NHL Center Ice and streaming audio feeds, hockey fans were limited in their TV selection — whatever was carried on your local cable outfit was what you got, and that was it. For ol’ MJ, that meant choosing between the three New York teams, the Devils and the Bruins. Now, I didn’t particularly care for any of those teams (and still don’t…in fact, I really hate all of them) but the Bruins were the lesser evil. Besides, being able to watch Ray Bourque and Cam Neely in their primes was quite nice.

Fred Cusick was the voice of the Bruins for thirty years over the radio and television airwaves. Even though it’s been about a dozen years or so since I last watched a Bruins game, I can still remember Fred’s distinctive voice; it had a warm elegance to it that effortlessly conveyed a sense of excitement and drama, no matter what was going on. He was the perfect complement to Derek Sanderson’s sharp color commentary, and even though I didn’t care for most of the team, I became a fan of those broadcasts on WSBK.

Fred retired from the Bruins broadcasting team back in the late 90s, but moved on to be the voice of the Manchester Monarchs until 2002, placing the coda on a hockey career that spanned five decades. Orr, Esposito, Cheevers, O’Reilly, Bourque, Neely…Freddy called them all.

It seems that there are very few of the broadcasting icons left these days. The number of still-active (or alive) broadcasting legends is rapidly dwindling, to the point where we can almost count them on one hand. Make no mistake about it, Fred Cusick’s death is a large minus one on that tally. If you were fortunate enough to have enjoyed Freddy at his best, no explanation is necessary. If you weren’t that lucky, no explanation would really make sense. I may despise all things Boston, but I’ll always have a deep respect for the only Voice of the Bruins.

Thanks, Freddy.