Broadcasters for Isles-Canucks

While you will be able to see the game on MSG+ Monday night from Hockeyville, you won't see Howie and Billy.

It's an NHL Network production, with the announcers coming from Western Canada.  The game will also air on NHL Network throughout the US and on Rogers Sportsnet in Canada.

John Shorthouse and John Garrett will call the action.  Shorthouse is the voice of the Canucks (on both TV and radio) while Garrett has worked on both Canucks and Flames games in recent years.

If the name John Garrett sounds familiar to Islander fans, it may be because he was involved in one of the oddest moments in Coliseum and All Star history.  Garrett played in the 1983 All-Star Game, and played well.  So well that during the third period he was voted the game's MVP; however Wayne Gretzky then went on to have a 4-goal game and they re-voted the MVP Award to give it to the Great One.

Here's how Garrett tells the story (from the Canucks website):

<<My opportunity to play in the NHL game came back in 1983 when Richard Brodeur was injured three days before the actual All-Star game. There was no other representative from the Canucks that year. Since Richard couldn't make it to Long Island for the game, the powers at the time decided they would simply send the other Canuck goalie. That was me.

The Oilers were just coming into their own and had a mess of players on the Campbell Conference squad including Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey and Glen Anderson. Along with Denis Savard, Brian Sutter and Lanny MacDonald, it was a pretty solid group.

The Wales Conference was represented by Mike Bossy, Brian Trottier, Denis Potvin, Peter Stastny and Larry Robinson. Talk about a thrill – especially for a kid from a small Air Force town in rural Ontario.

Call-it divine inspiration, blind luck, or whatever suits you, but I managed to shine in that game (a 9-3 Campbell Conference victory).

The Wales Conference had hammered us in the second period. I had managed to hold the fort and thought I was a lock for MVP honours - and the brand new car that came with it.

As my Campbell teammate Lanny McDonald famously put it: "I think John was up to the glove compartment, a horn and two tires when Wayne Gretzky took over."

Gretzky potted a record-setting four goals in the final ten minutes of the third period to steal the keys out of my pocket. Though I can think of worse fates than getting upstaged by Wayne Gretzky and a record-setting performance.
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 Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since 1982. Visit my blog: forever1940.blogspot.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick