The National Hockey League has begun to say its goodbyes to Sam Rosen.

Proclaiming this season as his last may have been to ensure the 77-year-old Rangers broadcaster enjoyed a farewell tour, but it has morphed into a dual-purpose sendoff. This has become an opportunity for everybody around the league — players, staff, management and fans alike — to shower a beloved figure in hockey with the same love and sincerity Rosen has injected into the sport for 40 years.

The Devils training staff gifted him an engraved bottle of wine.

Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman came to the visiting booth when the Rangers were in Detroit, as did Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan when they were in Toronto.

Flyers president Keith Jones presented Rosen with a commemorative brick from the old Spectrum.

Flames general manager Craig Conroy paid Rosen a visit to extend his congratulations in Calgary. Oilers brass did, too.

Referee Wes McCauley pointed up to the broadcast booth before dropping the puck between the Rangers and the Utah Hockey Club.

When the Red Wings were in New York, players sought Rosen out to express their well wishes.

There have been multiple scoreboard video tributes and special pregame-show interviews, with many more to come.

And in the media dining rooms across the league, everyone from officials to scouts to in-game operations are waiting their turn for a handshake.

“We get people that come to our booth and just say, ‘Sam, I know it’s the last time, I just wanted to tell you how much we appreciated your work,’” Joe Micheletti, Rosen’s broadcast partner of the last 19 seasons, told The Post.

“He is just so happy and appreciative. He’s always been that way. He’s always really appreciated his friendships with people around the league. He’s highly, highly respected. He’s never taken cheap shots at anybody to make a point. This is a business, some people think you should be really hard on somebody to make your point. He’s never done that. He has always done the work and appreciated the people for who they are and that’s why everywhere we go this is how it’s been.”


One of the most decorated broadcasting careers was born simply from a lifelong fandom.

Rosen, a Brooklyn native, was once just a kid who burst through the doors of the old Madison Square Garden on Sundays and scurried up to the top to get the best seats. He turned into an adult, a father and a grandfather, who got to call the Garden his office for four decades.

New York sports hasn’t had too many fairytale endings lately, but Rosen and the legacy he built is one of them.

“He’s iconic,” Mika Zibanejad said. “He’s a big part of the identity of the New York Rangers. When you think about the Rangers, you obviously [think about] the players and all that, but you think about Sam Rosen, as well. All the games that people have been listening to and seeing him and hearing him.

“Everything comes to an end at one point, obviously, but I don’t think it’s sunk in that this is his last season.”

It is rare for a single person to be synonymous with a franchise, but that is what Rosen is with the Rangers.

His New York passion, joy for his work and incomparable dedication to his craft have made the New York Rangers viewing/listening experience what it is today. It has only ever been his No. 1 goal to make it the best it could possibly be.

Not only has that been apparent to everyone watching at home, but it’s been recognized throughout the sport. You can find Rosen in the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame (2008), the Hockey Hall of Fame (2016) and the New York State Hockey Hall of Fame (2024).

He was also given the Lester Patrick award for his outstanding service to hockey in the United States earlier this month.

Trophies and accolades, however, are nothing compared to the love of a fan base and the adoration of a place like New York.


A graduate of the City College of New York, Rosen enjoyed a nice college baseball career. He has always been a lover of and participant in sports, but Rosen realized he wanted to start doing play-by-play when it was clear his athletic career was over.

Growing up in a house with one television, Rosen would take his radio and listen to Yankees games and Knicks games. He then began recording his own tapes as he aspired to be like Marty Glickman, Red Barber and Marv Albert.

Rosen started calling Rangers games for MSG Network in 1977-78 as the backup to Marv Albert on radio and Jim Gordon on television. After he signed his first full-time contract with the network in September 1982, Rosen became the Rangers main television broadcaster in 1984-85.

Rosen’s first broadcast partnership with Phil Esposito — short-lived compared to his tenures with Micheletti and John Davidson — was an eventful one filled with so much laughter.

Prior to one of their first broadcasts together, Esposito arrived at the arena extra early with some nerves. He went right up to the booth to avoid the crowd, came in and turned on the lights.

“And this guy, I remember it was this big guy, he was an electrician and he says, ‘What are you doing!’ ” Esposito recalled. “I said, ‘What? What?’ He’s like, ‘WHAT are YOU doing?’ I said, ‘I just switched on the light!’ He says, ‘You can’t do that. That’s my job.’ I said, ‘Are you kidding me? I just switched on the lights.’ And then I did this stupid thing where I went to the switch and I flicked them on and off about five or six times.

“Then they got a call from the boss end and they said, ‘Phil, you better apologize or the electrician’s union is going to shut down the game.’ I said, ‘What?’ And Sam said, ‘Phil, just apologize.’ I said, ‘For what? For turning on the lights!’ He’s like, ‘Yeah you can’t do that.’ So I apologized to the guy and the game went on.”

Esposito was always looking to make Rosen laugh, which isn’t very difficult.

Rosen lost it the time Esposito’s MSG stick-on patch fell off his blazer mid-show after Esposito refused to have it stitched on out of fear of repercussions at bars after games on the road.

While Rosen tried to read commercials for Minolta, a defunct camera company, Esposito would stand behind the camera repeatedly blinking his eyes.

And then there was the time Esposito called out former Rangers coach Herb Brooks on the air for trying to make Mike Rogers into a defensive centerman.

“And Sam looked at me,” Esposito said with a belly laugh. “When he looked at me I went, ‘Uh oh, I’m in trouble.’”

A big part of Esposito didn’t want to give up the gig with Rosen to become the Rangers head coach and general manager in 1986. But when it came time, Esposito said he helped facilitate Davidson’s hiring.

When you’re working with someone like Rosen, Davidson said, there is no such thing as a transition. It just works. Chalking it up to how much of a team player Rosen is, Davidson lauded Rosen for appearing as if he could broadcast a sport every single day of the week and still love it.

That was the kind of environment Rosen fostered then and continues to today.


“All my friends that I grew up with who watched Sam, I could go home and say Sam was exactly the same guy that we all saw on TV when we were in high school,” said Chris Ebert, who has been Rosen’s producer at MSG for 13 seasons.

There is also a standard that Rosen strives for each and every time he gets in front of the camera. Despite the everchanging technology in the broadcast space, Ebert said Rosen’s process and preparation style has stayed the same.

Rosen is still at every practice and in the locker room talking to players every chance he gets. Micheletti noted that Rosen is always over-prepared, with Ebert adding that he likes to know as much about a game as he can going into it.

But the fun is never lost when working alongside someone like Rosen.

Davidson said he had no idea what Wayne Gretzky was talking about when he said on TNT that MSG production would feed the former Rangers goalie the trivia answers behind Rosen’s back. He repeatedly pleaded the fifth while giggling at the thought of Rosen’s bewilderment of his Rangers knowledge.

During the years without much success, Davidson said the broadcast team took the approach of, win or lose, people deserved to sit at home and smile a little bit. They worked tirelessly to deliver that.

The Year of Ultimate Success in 1994, however, is one that naturally stands out to Davidson.

After working at the studio for part of the Rangers’ Stanley-Cup-winning parade, executive producer Mike McCarthy had Rosen and Davidson kidnapped and taken down to the Canyon of Heroes.

“That was an incredible experience,” said Davidson, who went to Pittsburgh to watch Rosen accept the Lester Patrick award. “I’d never felt anything like that in my life. Sam and I were in the police car with the officers and when you looked out the window of the car, all you saw was people. Faces. That was unbelievable. Sam was so excited. He was so excited.”


They say all good things must come to an end, but for Rosen — who also called Olympics and NFL games on Fox for more than 20 years — it won’t conclude without proper acknowledgement.

When you’ve spent the better part of your life serving as the soundtrack to New Yorker’s fandom, that’s just how it goes. Rosen is not just bidding adieu to the job he’s aspired to hold since he was in college, he’s vacating a position that has meant so much to people because of what he’s done with it.

For those reasons, this farewell tour is as much for the Rangers, the rest of the NHL and hockey fans everywhere as it is for him.

“I’d get in bed a lot of nights and throw the Ranger game on, so definitely fell asleep to him talking hockey a lot of the nights,” Rangers backup goalie and Connecticut native Jonathan Quick said. “Obviously, he’s a legend in this organization and this league. Just happy for the career he’s had and wish him the best.”

Rosen said he won’t be able to start wrapping his head around his retirement until March or April, but it has evidently been on everybody else’s mind.

There is an initiative to savor every last bit of Rosen as a play-by-play announcer, a hockey fixture and a personality to be around.

With well over 3,000 Rangers games called and 12 Stanley Cup Finals on his résumé, Rosen’s body of work in the NHL will be remembered almost as much as his presence surely will be.

“It seems to be the only thing he’s ever wanted to do,” Ebert said. “It feels great to do it for him, but I think selfishly it’s for us, too. It’s little nuggets of our childhood. I remember those moments, watching them and it’s just been great to relive as a fan, as his co-worker, as his friend. It’s been fun and I hope he enjoys it as much as we have.”

Rangers fans will never forget his famous “This one will last a lifetime!” or ‘It’s a power-play goal!’ calls.

Because Sam Rosen’s voice has lasted generations.

That is what makes it the hardest of goodbyes. 

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