In a rare visit to the press box, Mike Milbury is set to broadcast a game between the two N.H.L. franchises he worked for. Milbury will serve as the color commentator for the Versus telecast Monday night when the Boston Bruins host the Islanders.
“I’m usually in the studio, or sometimes between the benches,” said Milbury, who works for NBC, Versus and CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada. “But they do assign me one- or two-game analyst spots a season in the broadcast booth. I guess I was an obvious choice for Bruins-Islanders.”
For Milbury, a Massachusetts native, the game is close to home in every sense. He was a defenseman for the Bruins from 1975 until 1987. He spent the first four years of his career in coaching and management with the organization. He was the head coach of the Bruins’ minor league affiliate, the Maine Mariners, for two years before becoming the head coach and assistant general manager of his hometown team. In his first year as an N.H.L. head coach, he took the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Final, where they lost to the Edmonton Oilers.
Milbury worked in hockey operations for the Islanders from 1995 until 2006. He had three brief stints as the team’s head coach, but his long tenure as general manager was marked by ownership follies and instability, shoestring budgets and many of his own controversial moves. Under his watch, and not until Charles Wang purchased the franchise in 2000 and invested competitive dollars in the roster, Milbury’s teams qualified for the playoffs three times. After he stepped down as general manager in 2006, he served as a club vice president, over-seeing administration and marketing at Wang’s suggestion.
His return to the booth comes as the teams he is closely connected with are off to poor starts to the season. The Bruins won the Stanley Cup last season but appear to be suffering from a championship hangover. The Islanders, who have not come close to contending for a playoff berth the last four seasons, are tied with Boston for last place in the 15-team Eastern Conference. Both teams, however, are coming off good wins Saturday: the Bruins beat Toronto, 7-0, and the Islanders defeated Washington, 5-3.
Since Milbury still has friends and associates with the teams – most notably Wang and the Bruins president Cam Neely (who played for Milbury) – it will be interesting to see if the usually unguarded analyst will be tamer in the booth Monday. He said he would not pull any punches.
“After I left the Islanders and got back into broadcasting, Bob McKenzie gave me good advice when we worked together at TSN,” said Milbury, who lives in the Boston suburbs after a decade on Long Island. “Bob told me, ‘Once the red light goes on, there are no teams.’ That’s been my approach, and that’s how I’ll see the game Monday in Boston.”
Dave Strader will call the play-by-play, while Pierre McGuire will provide additional analysis in a booth between the Bruins’ and Islanders’ benches.
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