Checking in with Gary Thorne

Gary Thorne will broadcast his fifth game of this five-game Kings sojourn when Los Angeles faces Colorado at Pepsi Center otomorrow, and after a Buffalo-Detroit-Boston leg of a road trip next month, will hand the torch off to former Dallas Stars voice Ralph Strangis. With Bob Miller not traveling with the team for extended Eastern Conference road trips, the club has turned to veteran, accomplished announcers to provide the televised play-by-play account of live game action. TSN’s Chris Cuthbert and, for the Los Angeles-Florida game on February 9, inaugural Kings voice Jiggs McDonald, will also lend their voices to the team’s catalog of broadcasters that, in addition to McDonald and Miller, also boasts a Hall of Famer in radio play by play broadcaster Nick Nickson.

In listening to Thorne during Sunday’s game in Winnipeg, there is still the unmistakable aspect of his call that was inherent in the way he called hockey for ESPN (and currently does as the television play-by-play broadcaster for the Baltimore Orioles): a clear crescendo of rising action, punctuated by unmistakable pinnacles of importance. There is profound excitement in his goal calls and articulations of when something prominent happens in the game. There is not constant yelling; only emotion and raised diction when the moment in the live event calls for it.

Thorne, who hasn’t called NHL games since his famous Game 7 call between Tampa Bay and Calgary, has gained comfort with every game as he has stepped back into a (much colder) broadcast booth with Los Angeles. He spoke with LA Kings Insider earlier on the road trip about his preparation for this stretch of games.

Gary Thorne, on how he prepared to broadcast Kings games:
Really, I’m trying to think of when the opportunity came to do it, it was only a couple of days before the start of the regular season when I realized they wanted me to do it and we got the deal done. Then I started taking a look and seeing who was where and what the questions were and what the issues were and doing all that kind of background work.

Thorne, on whether he felt any urgency as it got closer to the broadcast date:
No, I watched all the games from home because I’m in California so I turned them on, watched them, video-ed them and had a chance to go back and take a look at styles and they haven’t had many chances. Daryl hasn’t done much as far as changes unless forced on him so that made it a lot easier and then just do some reading. As you know there’s so much stuff out there, it’s more about how to pare it down then about finding it. So once the season got under way it wasn’t too hard.

Thorne, on whether the game is faster since his last call in 2004:
I think so, I think the flow is actually better. There are fewer whistles, the red line situation has made an enormous difference reducing the number of faceoffs and the number of starts and stops that you get in a game. That’s good for the game, I think the league needed that, it needed that flow and I think that’s the biggest difference. The guys continue to get bigger and faster although even back then the size that has entered the game came quite a while ago. The big skaters arrived a long time ago but the speed of the game has really picked up and to me that’s what makes the game so great to watch because you have got to be so talented on the ice because, we talk about time and space all the time, there isn’t any. There isn’t any time and there isn’t any space so if you have to think about it it’s too late.

Thorne, on developing a voice for large moments in hockey games:
I just think that’s the fan in me. I’ve been a fan all my life and you can’t make that stuff up. It either is or it isn’t and you either understand enough about the game to know what you’re seeing is a moment that’s at least got the potential for excitement or one that doesn’t. And I just, that comes through. I don’t ever try to hide emotions on this stuff, it is what it is. I kind of react the same way I would as a fan watching the game. There are games that bring you to the edge of your seat, there are plays that bring you to your feet, and there are plays that make you sit back in your seat, and when you’re doing the play by play all you’re doing is doing that with your voice.

Thorne, on developing chemistry with Jim Fox:
It’s a matter of rhythm. Broadcasting sports is a lot, especially in hockey, basketball less so, football less so, baseball, it’s about developing a rhythm in the booth as well as on the ice. And there’s no way to do that except doing it. You just have to find each other’s rhythm, you get a sense of when the other person has something to say and you shut up, a sense when it’s time to go forward, maybe help a little bit. That’s both of us, there’s times where you just haven’t got much to say and you try and fill a blank or something, but that’s all doing. You can’t practice that, there’s no way you can practice that, so you get on the air, you go, and you pay attention.

Thorne’s final game of the current road trip will be broadcast from the Pepsi Center in Denver on FOX Sports West and FOX Sports GO when the Kings face the Colorado Avalanche at 6:00 p.m. PT on Tuesday, November 15.