I was only seven or eight-years-old, so there was no way the much older boys were going to let me play in their intense street hockey game against their rivals from the other side of Windwood Court.
My brother John, cousin Donald, and all of their friends who were anywhere from three-to-seven years older than me were ready, as the other group carried their net and sticks to our little area of the street.
I wasn’t allowed to join them, but still wanted to be involved. So I moved off to the side, climbed a fence and sat at the top, so I could get a good view and called play-by-play.
No audience, no speaker, not even a recording device. Just me announcing it, basically to myself, as if they were NHLers and I was Rick Jeanneret.
If I couldn’t pretend to be Gilbert Perreault, Danny Gare, or Mike Ramsey - I was still going to be a Sabres favorite, and legend.
That’s what RJ already was, and forever will be.
A personal favorite.
A professional legend.
I wanted to be the voice of that game, because Rick was the voice of the Sabres on the radio.
Most games I watched on television, Ted Darling called them. He was also amazing. The press box at KeyBank Center is now named after him.
While Ted was the calming, steady voice that complemented the pictures on television, Rick was who brought them to life when you couldn't see it. The way he described a game, and the energy he brought with it allowed me to vividly imagine I was sitting in the stands watching it, ready to chant along with the crowd or boo the officials.
Often times, it was simply while driving in the car, heading to an aunt or uncles house with my mom and dad. Instead of putting music on the radio, they let me listen to the game.
They knew how much it meant to me.
That's why when it was time to go to bed but the game wasn’t over yet or the Sabres played on the west coast on a non-school night and games started at 10 p.m. ET in Buffalo, they also let me listen to it on my Walkman, with my headphones hugging my head and covering my ears.
I remember challenging myself to stay up for as long as I could. The next power play. The end of the period. I wanted to go as long as I could, hopefully getting to the end of the game before falling asleep, but never seemed to make it.
At some point after I actually did fall asleep, my mom would come into the room and take those headphones off of me.
But Rick’s voice was the last thing I heard all those nights.
How lucky was I if I got to hear a goal before I closed those eyes? Maybe even luckier if I hear a fight, because as great as Rick was at calling those goals, he may have been at his best when calling fights. It didn't matter if it was the smaller Brent Peterson, who was much more known for winning faceoffs than dropping the gloves, or the hulking Larry Playfair, who seemed to get one fighting major per-night, Rick made every pushing and shoving match sound like the build-up to the Greasers versus the Socs in The Outsiders. Every instance of fisticuffs sounded like Ali against Frazier.
With RJ calling the game, there were heroes, there were villains, and there were magical moments.
30 years later, his voice is often still the last one I hear. Only now, instead of being tucked in under the covers listening on that Walkman, it’s watching the TV in the bedroom after my wife and son have gone to sleep.
As much as the team has changed, and the way we watch and listen has changed since those days of sitting on the fence and pretending to be him, Rick hasn't changed.
That's why I wanted to make sure I was in the building when the team honored him on Friday night. Not just as a colleague, now that I work in this profession and on the flagship station of the team, but also as a fan, admirer, and still that little kid who can't wait to hear those goal calls!
I’m going to miss all of that. I think we all will. But we’ll have 50 years of them to always re-live, and know how special they were.
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