For many fans, Barry Melrose was hockey.
Not because he was raised outside of Kelvington, Saskatchewan, wielding a hockey stick at 15 years old while living on a farm without indoor plumbing. Not because the venerable Montreal Canadiens drafted him in 1976 from the Kamloops Chiefs, and not because he'd play 300 NHL games as a defenseman in Winnipeg, Toronto and Detroit. Not because he coached Wayne Gretzky to the Stanley Cup Final in 1993, leading a swaggering collection of Los Angeles Kings to within three wins of immortality.
No, Barry Melrose was hockey because he was a mullet-adorned oasis for puckheads on "SportsCenter" -- the lone voice talking about the NHL in between copious amounts of touchdowns and slam dunks and Tiger Woods putts.
"For more than 30 years, Barry was the unquestioned face and voice of hockey in the United States," said Steve Levy, his close friend and colleague at ESPN.
From 1996 until his retirement in 2023 -- after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease -- Melrose was hockey's greatest ambassador in the U.S., on sports television's most important platform. Whether or not ESPN had the NHL's broadcasting rights, Melrose was breaking down highlights on "NHL 2 Night" or trading barbs with Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on "PTI." Hearing that roaring laugh, seeing an audacious suit, meant it was time for hockey talk.
That talk was suddenly silenced Wednesday when Melrose died. He was 70.
"When you think about Barry Melrose, you think about ESPN. He was a legend of the game of hockey. I'm so sad to hear of his passing," Vegas Golden Knights center Jack Eichel said. "You think about the hair. You think about the personality. You think about the wild suit jackets and everything that he meant in the game. He will be missed."
He meant something to fans and to players, be they modern stars like Eichel or ones from bygone eras.
"As a young player, you always knew it was big-time when you saw him on the air, helping to grow the game," said ESPN analyst Kevin Weekes, a former NHL goaltender who would go on to work with Melrose as a broadcaster for over a decade. "I liked the fact that he brought flair to the airwaves while helping to amplify the sport. He was a titan of hockey."
Melrose was a lifeline for American hockey fans on sports television. Canadian fans were blessed with multiple networks leaning heavily into the sport at all times. Hearing Barry Melrose talking hockey was like scanning a radio dial in an unfamiliar city and then finding that one station that played your music.
"If you are obsessed with a sport, as I was with hockey as a young kid, you can usually only dream of having an analyst that is engaging, informative and fun explaining it on TV every night," said Kevin Clark, host of "This Is Football" on ESPN2. "What a godsend he was for the sport of hockey, for ESPN, and for everyone who knew him."
John Buccigross knew him, as a friend and on-air partner for the better part of three decades. "Barry was my best friend at ESPN. A big-brother figure of rock-solid values," he said.
Buccigross found it eerily poetic that he found out about Melrose's death while inside a hockey rink, at the NHL/NHLPA player media tour in Las Vegas. "Chilling and fitting -- the rink was Barry's home," he said.
Levy knew him. Their on-air partnership also spanned decades, cemented by their two-man show during the Stanley Cup playoffs, trading lighthearted insights from inside empty arenas.
"Now he can drink all the Bud Lights and smoke all the cigars and play all the rounds of golf he wants to," Levy said. "Barry Melrose was the best of us."
The first time I saw Melrose, he had a cigar in hand. He was sitting on concrete steps in Boston, a few blocks away from TD Garden after a morning skate. It was like seeing a unicorn in the flesh. I watched local hockey fans knowingly side-eyeing him but being too timid to walk over and greet him. I'd come to understand the irony here, given how approachable Melrose actually was. But he was one of those celebrities whose comportment created that hesitation. As "SportsCenter" anchor Neil Everett would say at the end of Melrose's segments: "Cool is the rule."
Barry was cool. He ruled.
Tony Granato played for Melrose when he coached the Kings and then watched him become the face of hockey for decades on ESPN.
"He could light up a room. He could make people hear his voice and then you turn around and wonder what else he was going to say? There was no phoniness to him. He just was himself," Granato said. "To some, it looked like a little cockiness or a little bit of swagger. But underneath all the humor and all his stories and that big laugh he had, he had a confidence in himself. He had confidence in the people around him."
The second time I saw Melrose was in Bristol, the day before a hockey summit with my co-workers. I was staying at one of those hotels that had the fresh chocolate chip cookies in the lobby. As I'm checking in, I see this lumbering figure out of the corner of my eye going for one of the cookies. It was Barry. And he was wearing ... shorts.
I can't begin to explain to you how jarring this was. I didn't know Barry wore anything but a suit. Heck, I wasn't all that convinced he actually had legs after all these years. Seeing him in shorts was like seeing a character in a theme park lift up their giant plush head for a sip of water. The illusion was broken. Cool as he was, Melrose was just another hockey-obsessed guy looking for a late-night cookie. Which was part of the magic: The coolest guy on television was also sneakily one of its most affable personalities.
"Barry Melrose was an effective TV personality primarily because he was so unlike any other TV personality. He had a signature style: a booming voice and an infectious laugh. But that's not why he became such an effective commentator. He was able to connect with viewers thanks to his straightforward and relatable style," said John Ourand, the longtime sports media writer now working at Puck. "Viewers knew that they could trust Barry. They knew that his opinions were true to his personality. It's why he remains one of hockey's great on-air personalities."
Would he say outlandish things? Undoubtably, which is one reason Charles Barkley once called him "the best analyst in television." He'd go in on players or teams. Sometimes that commentary would cross a line, like in 2009 when Melrose told fans "Don't go outside if you have a wallet" when they visited Newark's Prudential Center, despite never having been to the city himself.
What separated Melrose from the current class of hot-take artists was his occasional penance. After considerable backlash, Melrose ended up touring Newark with local officials and changed his tune about the city. Cory Booker, then the mayor of Newark, said: "It's a stand-up thing to do to come to Newark and see for himself. He took a bad situation and turned it positive."
If he demanded accountability from his players, how could he not demand it from himself?
Melrose had two coaching stints in the NHL. One lasted 16 games in the 2008-09 season, as Melrose and the Tampa Bay Lightning quickly realized how much the game had advanced past the 52-year-old.
(It's never advisable to give the team's first overall pick and marketing darling rookie just six minutes of ice time in his third NHL game, which is what Melrose gave Steven Stamkos that season.)
But his first coaching stint cemented the Barry legend -- and helped popularize the character that would eventually sell hockey on ESPN.
Melrose coached the Los Angeles Kings from 1992 to '95. He was a rock star from the moment owner Bruce McNall hired him. Melrose was a highly regarded AHL coach for the Red Wings, so much so that Detroit coach Bryan Murray would have stepped down to ensure Melrose didn't leave. So McNall offered Melrose a four-year, $1 million contract to make him the highest paid first-year coach in NHL history.
"The bright lights in L.A. were nothing for him when he got there," said Rob Blake, a Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman who played for Melrose when he coached the Kings. "Had the nice hair going. Nice flow back in the day."
Melrose had the second-most famous mullet in the NHL behind Pittsburgh's Jaromir Jagr, but his collection of oversized suits was unmatched. Aesthetics aside, Melrose was an intense and effective motivator, according to Granato.
"He always had that ability to get you excited and passionate about whatever you were doing. If he showed up right now and said, 'Hey, get your gear on, we're going to play Montreal again,' I'd run through the wall to get that opportunity," he said.
One of Granato's favorite Melrose memories was when he'd take his 4-year-old and 2½-year-old to the Kings' rink, only to see them run into the coach's office. He'd close the door and sit down. Once the kids were released, Granato asked Melrose if they behaved.
"Are you kidding me?" the coach replied. "If you pay attention to what I told them, you'll know what you're supposed to do."
Melrose had programmed Granato's kids with the coaching lessons he needed to impart on his player.
"Barry would make us all feel like we were the most important people in the room. That's just the personality he had," Granato said. "It was so exciting that it didn't end on a bench. That he was able to show the rest of the hockey world that personality."
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman -- while citing Melrose's "flowing locks of his distinctive mullet" and the "flared lapels of his trademark long suit coats" -- said Melrose "never failed to boost your love of the game of hockey."
Melrose told "Sports Media Watch" in 2010 that ESPN is "the greatest sports company in the world" but that "I'm always hoping against hope that we do get hockey back."
I thought a lot about Barry when ESPN did get the NHL rights back in 2021. He wasn't the only one keeping the fire lit for hockey at the network -- a list that included Levy, Bucci, Linda Cohn and others -- but he was undoubtably the torchbearer for the sport.
Barry Melrose was hockey for so many fans, for so many years. I'm just so happy that, even for a brief time, he no longer had to shout the loudest for it to remain in the conversation. He loved the game and the game loved him, which is why losing him hurts so much. There's no replacing the man, the ambassador, the husband or the colleague. There's no filling the void left in the fabric of hockey.
"Man, he was special," Granato said.
