Fred Cusick
Fred Cusick | |
---|---|
Born | Frederick Michael Cusick November 7, 1918 Brighton, Massachusetts |
Died | September 15, 2009 | (aged 90)
Occupation | Former NHL broadcaster |
Frederick Michael Cusick (November 7, 1918 – September 15, 2009) was an American ice hockey broadcaster who served as the Boston Bruins play-by-play announcer from 1971 until 1997 on WSBK-TV (Channel 38) in Boston, and from 1984 until 1995 on NESN. Counting his radio broadcasts, he was a Bruins' announcer for an unprecedented 45 years, and was an active sports announcer for over seven decades. He is best known for yelling "SCORE!" when a Boston player scored a goal.
Biography
Early life and career
Fred Cusick was born in the
He was the announcer for the first US network NHL broadcast (CBS-TV in January 1957); he spent four years in all working the NHL Game of the Week for
1960s-1970s
Fred Cusick was the color commentator on
In the early 1960s, Cusick was responsible for getting Boston Bruins' games on local television on a regular basis. In 1963, Bruins CEO Weston Adams asked Fred and producer/director Neal P. Cortel to arrange the first-ever live telecast of a Bruins game from the old Boston Garden. The experimental telecast was wildly popular, and later during the 1963/1964 season, Fred hosted the Sunday morning rebroadcasts of edited
From 1969 through 1971, Cusick was the radio voice of the Boston Bruins on
In 1971, Cusick returned to TV, succeeding Don Earle, who had been hired by WSBK when they began covering the Boston Bruins, as play-by-play man for Bruins' games on WSBK with Peirson as his color man; when NESN was formed in 1984, he did double duty for 11 years, calling games for both channels, first with Johnny Peirson and later both Derek Sanderson and Dave Shea. In his last years before he retired from broadcasting the Bruins, he did games only on WSBK.
1980s-1990s
He was inducted into the
It was Cusick who did the television play-by-play of the last Bruins' game at the old Boston Garden (a pre-season game against Montreal in 1995) and the first Bruins' game in the FleetCenter, the 1995–96 season-opener against the New York Islanders.
2000s
After retiring from the Bruins' broadcasts in 1997, he began broadcasting home games for the
In 2007, he returned to the broadcast booth as the Cape Cod Baseball League game of the week play-by-play announcer on WBZ (AM) Radio.
His autobiography, Fred Cusick: Voice of the Bruins (
Death
Fred Cusick died in his sleep on September 15, 2009, at his home in Barnstable, Massachusetts, from complications of bladder cancer. The following day he was posthumously inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame,[4][5][6][7][8] an honor he had been scheduled to receive before his death.
References
- ^ a b c Shinzawa, Fluto (September 15, 2009). "Recent interview with Cusick". Boston Globe.
- ^ "Short Stories About Subchasers". Splinter Fleet.
- ^ Fybush, Scott. "North East RadioWatch: April 17, 1997". BostonRadio.org.
- ^ Marquard, Bryan (September 16, 2009). "Fred Cusick, 90, velvety voice of the Bruins for nearly 5 decades". Boston Globe.
- ^ Finn, Chad (September 15, 2009). "Legendary voice Cusick dies at 90". www.boston.com. Retrieved 2023-09-03.
- ^ "Fred Cusick, longtime voice of Bruins, dead at 90". NHL.com. Retrieved 2023-09-03.
- ^ SALSBERG, BOB. "Fred Cusick, voice of Bruins, dead at 90". Cape Cod Times. Retrieved 2023-09-03.
- ^ "Longtime Bruins announcer Fred Cusick dies". Boston Herald. 2009-09-15. Retrieved 2023-09-03.
External links
- Fred Cusick's official site
- From Cape Cod League website Archived 2007-08-19 at the Wayback Machine