It’s pretty rare for a national sports broadcaster to be openly rooting against a historic sports moment happening.
But there was Port Washington native Kenny Albert on April 4, sitting in his Atlanta hotel room and watching Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals play the Chicago Blackhawks.
And Albert really, really wanted Ovechkin to please stop scoring.
The Washington Capitals legend came into the night two goals away from tying Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record of 894 career goals, and he tied the record in the third period.
Albert was scheduled to broadcast the Caps’ next game, against the Islanders two days later on TNT, and wanted to get the chance to call the “Great 8” record-breaker.
“You always hope to be a part of a call like that, a game like that, but you never know; he could’ve gone 10 games without another goal,” Albert said this week, while back at his alma mater, Schreiber High School in Port. “And that night (against the Blackhawks), he scored the first one pretty early, and once he got the second one, I’m rooting against him. I don’t want him to score another goal that night! He had three good chances to break it, and my heart was pounding.”
Fortunately for Albert, Ovechkin didn’t score anymore. And even more fortunately for the 52-year-old sportscaster who has more jobs than he has fingers on his hands, Ovi did score against the Islanders, on a clean slap shot that Albert as usual did a superb job calling.
“Here is Ovechkin! He shoots, he scores! He scores! No. 895!” Albert shouted, before letting the words and pictures tell the story, not saying another word for the next 46 seconds.
“I’m not one who tries to script a call, but you do think of key words you may want to include, or say,” Albert said. “And in hockey, there are so many variables; it could be a deflection goal that you don’t see clearly the right way, or it could be a goal that gets an instant replay review, for offsides. Luckily, it was on a power play, it was clean, and then I was able to see it.
“I got home that night after he did it, and I asked myself, ‘did that really happen?’ because it seemed so surreal.”
Asked where it ranks among the many moments he’s called over a three-decade career, Albert said, “This is one is at the top of my list.”
It’s been a heck of a last few weeks for the 57-year-old Port native, son of legendary broadcaster Marv Albert. A few days after the Ovechkin record-breaker, Albert was officially named the new TV play-by-play voice for the New York Rangers, replacing the retiring Sam Rosen, who’d held the job for 40 years.
Albert has been doing Rangers games on the radio since 1995, the last 20 with partner Dave Maloney, and it has long been expected he’d take over for Rosen when Rosen retired.
“I always hoped Sam worked until he was 100,” Albert said. “He’s such a good friend and colleague; I’ve been so lucky to do the radio there for parts of 29 years, and loved every second of it. So I’m very excited to have this new opportunity.”
In between his work for FOX covering NFL games, TNT covering hockey, and broadcasting New York Knicks games, Albert has been able to return to Port Washington twice in the past two weeks.
First, he returned to speak to Jeremy Klaff’s sports information/broadcasting class in early April, spending a few hours with the students learning broadcasting and doing radio/TV work for Schreiber’s in-house station.
It was a callback to Albert’s days as a student in the 1980s, when he said he was “a one-man shop” writing stories for the school newspaper and learning the craft of broadcasting.
“We had a great teacher here, Mr. Barchi, and we did some news shows and we had a little TV studio here,” Albert recalled. “To see what they’re doing now is so great.”
Albert then returned to Schreiber on April 21 to help salute the Port Washington boys basketball team’s run to the state championship game, where they fell to Shaker.
Now he’s got a busy few months ahead with the Stanley Cup playoffs, before he gets to take over his new Rangers gig.
“It’s exciting that we (at TNT) have the cup finals this year, and then in the fall the new job with the Rangers,” Albert said. “It’s an honor to take over for a legend like Sam.”
