New York Rangers broadcaster Sam Rosen reflects on stellar career heading into final season

What makes a great broadcaster?

Is it their knowledge of the game, or their excitement on the call? Or is it their ability to make every game feel like a big one?

One man who has checked those boxes and many more is New York Rangers play-by-play broadcaster Sam Rosen. Since 1984, his voice has graced the ears of Ranger fans and beyond, bringing a professionalism and energy that has resonated through generations.

The 2024-25 season will be Rosen’s 40th season as the full-time voice of the Blueshirts. However, it will be his last. The 77-year-old announced last month that he will be retiring from broadcasting at the end of this season.

Rosen said that he’s as fit as a fiddle, but wanted to hang up his headset before it was too late.

“You kind of reach a point where you look at it, and this is probably the best time for everyone concerned,” Rosen said. “For me, for my family, for MSG Network, for the Rangers…It’s been a wonderful ride.”

The German-born immigrant took what tennis star Andy Murray said when he announced his retirement at Wimbledon earlier this year.

“‘My heart says I want to do this forever, but my head says I can’t.’ That’s really what it gets down to…You never want to just hang on and have people say, ‘I remember when Sam was much better,’ or ‘His game has fallen off a little bit.'”

Rosen has been fortunate enough to witness a lot of greatness during his time in New York. From calling legends such as Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Brian Leetch, and Henrik Lundqvist, to giving fans one of the best calls in hockey history when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994, Rosen has seen a bit of everything.

Yet, one of Rosen’s most admirable attributes as a commentator is his ability to make every game feel important. Whether it be Game 7 in the playoffs or a Tuesday night matchup in early December, he feels it’s his duty to give it his best every broadcast.

“That’s the way I’ve treated it in my broadcasting career. Every game is special…the fans that tune in, it means something to them,” Rosen said. “They’re loyal, they’re hardcore…The fanbase follows the team. We go to Raleigh and play the New York Rangers, and you see the Ranger fans, sometimes 40-50 percent of the fans in the arena. The fans are always there.”

Rosen has connected with fans all around the country, especially when the Rangers were on a superstation broadcast across the nation. He says the fans’ passion inspires him.

“They’re watching and it’s meaningful to them. You want to let them know that it’s meaningful to me and to them. That’s the responsibility as a broadcaster that you want to bring across to the fans.”

While he has been to numerous arenas across the United States, Rosen admits the atmospheres in the rinks north of the border have been some of his favorite places to visit.

“The Canadian rinks are wonderful. You always get the feeling in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, [Winnipeg] and Ottawa how much the game means to the people. That’s their pride and joy, and you can feel it when you walk into those arenas.”

Rosen admitted one of his favorites to call a game from is the Bell Centre in Montreal.

“It’s the best,” Rosen said. “They have a gondola where you take the elevator up to the press level. You walk down the lovely walkaround and into the booth, and you’re in this great working area, spacious, but you’re close to the ice, and you can feel the game.”

One thing that Rosen has been blessed with over his time with the Rangers is great color commentators. After starting with Hockey Hall of Famer Phil Esposito for two years, Rosen found a solid partner in former Rangers netminder John Davidson. The duo became synonymous with Ranger hockey, working together for 20 years. Then, after Davidson joined the St. Louis Blues as team president in 2006, Rosen was paired with Joe Micheletti, a man that Rosen worked with during their tenures with the NHL on Fox.

Rosen said that getting to work with great broadcasters makes his job easy and fun.

“Very, very important to be comfortable with the guy you’re working next to,” he added. “That’s one of the things that have made my job more pleasurable, that I’ve been so fortunate. John and I knew each other when he was a player, and we became very close friends. I’ve been very lucky for 40 years with the Rangers to have just three outstanding broadcast partners.”

While Rosen is well known for his work in hockey, both with the Rangers and his national TV duties, he has also called several other sports. Before becoming the voice of the Rangers, he was the studio host for the NBA’s New York Knicks, filling on play-by-play duties for the great Marv Albert on occasion. He was also one of the voices of the NFL on Fox for many years.

Rosen said that football was his favorite sport to call outside of hockey.

“Football was always that one game every Sunday,” he said. “That was the special game that everybody looked forward to sitting down for…the realization that wherever you were doing a game, we were the one game that everyone was watching.”

For a brief time, Rosen even dabbled into the other form of football, as he served as both the public address announcer and radio broadcaster for the New York Cosmos of the old North American Soccer League. That gave him a front-row seat to watch the great Pele near the end of his career, and even though Rosen had the pleasure of seeing Messier turn the Rangers back into a hot commodity, there was something special about being around Pele.

“Because of the legendary person that he was, and the influence he had around the world in his sport, I got to give an edge to Pele. He had that magic persona, that great smile and the love for the game came through everything he did on the field.”

It was actually during his tenure with the Cosmos that spawned one of Rosen’s trademark calls.

“It’s a power-play goal!”

Rosen used that phrase in the late 1980s, particularly during the 1987-88 season. That year, the Rangers finished fifth in the Patrick Division, missing the playoffs. However, they had the fourth-best power play percentage in the NHL (22.6). The massive amount of goals on the man advantage spurned Rosen to get a little more excited each and every time.

“That team scored over 100 power-play goals, and that team wasn’t a playoff team,” Rosen said. “It seemed like every other goal they scored was a power play goal. So, it became so significant…it kind of gathered momentum, and it’s continued. Fans like it, and it’s just part of what I do.”

Rosen reminisced about the origin of this trademark, which began while as the Cosmos’ public address announcer.

“In the NASL in the late ’70s and early ’80s, we’d get so-so crowds. So, they wanted some excitement and enthusiasm, and part of that came from the public address announcer…When the Cosmos would score, I would belt out, ‘That’s a Cosmos goal.'”

Over the last 39 years, calling over 3,000 games, Rosen has established his name among the greatest broadcasters in hockey history. He became a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2016, when he was named the winner of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award.

His impact on the industry and the game as a whole will be felt for a long time.