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Past, Present Voices of Boston Bruins Team Up Tonight

07/21/2008 11:01 AM

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21 July 2008

Past, Present Voices of Boston Bruins
Team Up Tonight for Cape League
Game of the Week on WBZ1030.com

HYANNIS, Mass. -- What began just last season has returned in earnest as WBZ1030.com’s Cape Cod Baseball League Game of the Week continues to provide viewers with stunning picture quality and an outstanding play-by-play team for eight games in 2008 of the nation’s premier summer collegiate baseball league. 

     As the radio voice of the Boston Bruins, Dave Goucher must relay a very fast-moving game to his listeners throughout the NHL season. That being said, Goucher has "really enjoyed the laid-back conversational nature of broadcasting baseball. It could not be more opposite from calling a hockey game. Working with (color announcer) John Garner has helped make the transition very easy.

     “It's been a nice change, to call baseball games,” said Goucher, “and to do it on Cape Cod has been the best of both worlds."

     With Garner on vacation, the legendary Fred Cusick will team up with Goucher to broadcast the next WBZ1030.com Cape League Game of the Week tonight, featuring the Brewster Whitecaps against the Hyannis Mets under the lights at McKeon Park. The online webcast will begin at approximately 6:55 p.m. 

     The 89-year-old Cusick, who began his broadcasting career in 1941, served as the Bruins’ play-by-play TV broadcaster from 1971 to 1997 on WSBK-TV, Channel 38, and from 1984 tp 1993 on the New England Sports Network (NESN). He served as the Bruins’ radio broadcaster from 1952 to 1970 and was also sports director for WEEI Radio. The West Barnstable resident was the play-by-play announcer for the first U.S. network NHL broadcast on CBS-TV in 1957 and spent four years as the voice of the NHL Game of the Week.

     He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame when the first tandem of media honorees was recognized in 1984 and also was named winner of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award that recognizes “members of the radio and television industry who have made outstanding contributions in hockey broadcasting”. It was especially fitting that Cusick called the television play-by-play of the last Bruins game in the old Boston Garden and did likewise for their first game in the new TD Banknorth Garden (then known as the FleetCenter). His autobiography, “Fred Cusick: Voice of the Bruins,” was published in October 2006.

     Goucher said he relishes the opportunity to work with Cusick. "Like most hockey fans in New England, I grew up watching and listening to Fred … To have the opportunity to work with someone who's accomplished all that he has is a big thrill for me."

     In reflecting on his most memorable Cape League game this summer, Goucher said he thought that "our last game, Falmouth at Harwich, was our best one, with Falmouth down to its last strike and rallying to tie the game in the ninth, only to have Harwich win it in the bottom of the inning. (It was) an entertaining game with some momentum swings that was decided in the last at-bat."
 

Meghan Ryan, CCBL Intern ([email protected])

 

John Garner, Jr.
Director of Public Relations & Broadcasting
(508) 790-0394
[email protected] et 

Joe Sherman
Web Editor
(508) 775-4364)
[email protected]

Interns: Chris Blake, James Chandley, Ashley Crosby, Phil Garceau, Stefanie Marini, Laura Rasmussen