Distant replay
Emrick regrets his cautious call of Kane’s Cup-winning goal in 2010— so he redid it
Nearly 11 years later, Patrick Kane and the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks finally got the Stanley Cup-clinching overtime call they deserved from NBC’s Doc Emrick.
Emrick, like the game officials, was slow to see the puck in the net, and the man long acknowledged as among the best hockey announcers in North America erred on the side of caution.
But in “Doc Emrick: The Voice of Hockey,” an NBC documentary on the now-retired play-by-play man that debuted Sunday, Emrick acknowledged that June 9, 2010, bit of history was a call he would like do over — so he did.
The original version during Game 6 in Philadelphia went this way: “Here’s (the Blackhawks’ Brian) Campbell, handing on to Kane again. Lots of head fakes there, trying to shake (the Flyers’ Kimmo) Timonen. Threw one in front, they — oh, my! It rattled around, and it kicked on back and then — score!”
Emerick explains in the documentary: “I got the ‘s’ and the ‘c’ out, but I pulled back because I couldn’t see the puck. … I later found out from Patrick, as he got close, he saw it in the back of the net and he looked at the referee, who still was not indicating it was a goal, and so he said, ‘My job at that point was to sell it.’ ”
Kane began celebrating with his Hawks teammates while Emrick tried to sort out on the air what happened.
“We saw no light” from the goal judge, Emrick said on the game broadcast. “We saw no signal, and we’re not sure if they’ve sent a signal to the goal yet, but they are celebrating at the other end of the ice! What chaos! We have not seen a signal of a goal from the referee yet.”
Emrick’s do-over of the call at 4:06 into overtime, set to the original game video, went like this:
“Puck’s in on back on to Campbell. Campbell with a little pass on to Patrick Kane (who) sashays his way into the circle. Throw-in in front, he scores! Kane! In overtime! The Blackhawks are Stanley Cup champions! He’s rushing all the way to the end of the ice to celebrate. Patrick Kane in overtime, and Chicago has won its first championship since 1961!”
That’s a marked improvement, to be sure, in a career that should not have many regrets.