Baker stepping away from broadcasting after 15 years
Sharks fans looking forward to the 2021 season already were unsure of when the games would start or who the team would play against. Now they will be losing a voice and, at least temporarily, perhaps their home.
Jamie Baker announced Wednesday that he is stepping down from the broadcast booth, and commissioner Gary Bettman hinted that the team could be on the road for a while because of Santa Clara County’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Baker, who left the team twice during the 2017-18 season, later disclosing he suffered from depression, did not specify his reasons for leaving this time.
“2020, the year of uncertainty, seemed like the right time for me to move on from the Sharks broadcast team,” Baker said in a statement released on the Sharks’ Twitter account. “It’s been a privilege working with
some of the broadcasters and TV crew in the business; they made my job a lot easier because they are so talented.”
Baker, 54, declined to comment when reached Wednesday in his Canadian hometown of Ottawa.
In recent years, he had been splitting time between doing the radio broadcasts with Dan Rusanowsky and the NBC Sports California television broadcasts with play-by-play man Randy Hahn and occasionally fellow analyst Bret Hedican.
“It’s been a privilege watching the best players in the world battle at a ferocious pace with skill-sets that are hard to fathom at times,” Baker’s statement continued. “It’s been a privilege to work in the best hockey league in the world, with the most parity of any professional sports league.
“But most of all, it’s been a privilege connecting with you, the fans, for all these years. We bled teal together, riding the rollercoaster of pro sports. I hope our paths cross again, sometime, somehow, someway, somewhere.”
Baker has publicly addressed mental health issues in recent years. Twice during the 2017-2018 season, he stepped away from Sharks broadcasts to focus on his well-being.
Last year, Baker told this newspaper: “Being on a leave of absence a year ago and working as hard as I have to get where I am today, I felt it was a good time to share a few nuggets of what I’ve been through, in hope that even if one other person notices and is open about it, and talks about it with somebody and it helps them, then it was worth it.”
So, for the first time in 15 years, Baker will not be with the Sharks when they open the season -whenever and wherever that may be. The Sharks don’t even know where their training camp will be.
Bettman, appearing via video Wednesday at a panel discussion held at the World Hockey Forum in Moscow, hinted at what may be in store in the coming weeks for the Sharks.
“We have a couple of clubs that can’t hold training camp or conduct games even without fans in their current buildings and facilities, and we’re going to have to move them somewhere else to play,” the commissioner said.
The NHL is still looking at starting the regular season in mid-January, Bettman said. The 24 teams that were part of the NHL’s postseason this year would each have a 10-day training camp. The seven teams that did not practice or play, like the Sharks, would reportedly be able to start their training camp a few days beforehand, although nothing has been finalized by the NHL or the Players’ Association.
If Santa Clara County’s ban on contact sports and the mandatory 10-day quarantine for returning long-distance travelers remained in effect into January, the Sharks would not be able to hold training camp in San Jose or even start the season at SAP Center. The county’s restrictions are in effect until at least Dec. 21. If enough teams can’t play at home in front of spectators, Bettman said the league and the union are also discussing whether to group teams within their realigned divisions in hub cities around North America. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported that Las Vegas could be an option as a hub city.