Chasing the Dream, Finding the Booth | Josh Bogorad

You
Nobody would have thought that I would be the one.
Ryder sports talk.
Baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball.
Oh, it's a big mic.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay.
We're going to have a lightning strike, boys.
What happened over there, Grego?
We had a little lightning strike right outside the window.
All right.
All right.
Here's a tip for all these Americano league teams.
Don't do it.
You said tip.
Yeah, tap, tap.
It's a peak.
Keep jamming.
To take a colon.
Nothing but a big Gen X jerk off.
This is a girl night or what?
Oh, somebody would hear that.
Oh, shit.
I'm back.
I'm just.
Hi, hi, boys and girls.
And welcome to another episode of your dark companion.
It is fantastic to see you out there today.
The only thing is I can't see you.
You can see me.
I can't see you.
That's how this works.
But I know if I could, I would consider it nothing but fantastic to see you all.
Anyway, to have you here, no matter where you are, no matter how, or even when, let alone
when you may be consuming this podcast presentation, it is your dark companion.
It is the 23rd of February.
This is episode number one, 98.
And to, yeah, yeah, 198 of these bad boys.
They're all out there for you, man.
It's a beauty.
It is.
Anyway, Shubi is here.
Ashley is here.
And I'm very excited about today's guest because I didn't know him until we had him on the broadcast
round table that we did some time back down the road.
And that was the first time I got to meet him.
I have since become a big, big fan of his work.
And I think we're very, very lucky to have him here in the market doing that thing he does
because he is really good at it.
And what he does is really, really difficult.
All right, it seems that way to me.
He is the television and radio play by play voice of the stars.
The great Josh Boagrad.
Oh, look at that.
Brian Stakes, bud.
That's you, man.
That's unbelievable.
Yeah, I think back to when I first got to Dallas.
And I got here as the pre-game post-game host on the ticket radio.
Yes.
And so I was introduced to the little ticket for the first time.
And obviously the hard line would lead in our show most times if we would start at seven o'clock.
And your voice became synonymous with Dallas and the medium in Dallas for me.
And so just sitting here, listening to you talk, it's kind of like the opening that I would listen to all the time at 320.
And so, yeah, it's great to be here.
It's a treat for me to be sitting here with you.
And I appreciate all the kind words.
You know, I do remember you coming up to the radio station when you first got the gig.
But they didn't explain to me exactly who you were, what you were doing up there and the thing like that.
It's kind of how I got the gig.
I just was wandering around aimlessly until they pointed me in front of a microphone.
And I guess things worked out after that.
Now you're actually, you were nice, but I knew what I knew that I was, I mean, what was I like tier 731 at the time?
Yeah, it was, it was getting introduced to a new city.
It was getting introduced to a new station.
Obviously new people.
And it was getting introduced to a new position because prior to that, they didn't really have somebody that was doing that full time.
And so, yeah, it was, you were great to me, but I understood that the gig is usually who's this guy running into the studio as I'm packing up all my stuff and trying to get out of here and be traffic on the way home.
So.
I'm just glad I didn't come off as all putting in some way.
No, I mean, look, you might have been saying some horrible stuff as soon as you got out of the studio about me, but none of it was to my face.
No, no, actually, I got it.
The card had you punched up.
And I thought, OK, this guy seems to know this thing a little bit.
And in subsequent times, I have seen that that is indeed the case.
You are really, really good at this, man.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
Again, it's very, very cool of you to say and just trying to keep fooling them one show at a time, I guess.
Yeah.
For all of us.
Let's just start with some basics here because I really know very little about you.
Where did you grow up?
Los Angeles.
Yeah, I'm an LA kid.
I was born and raised in LA and I was there until I was 18 and then I left to go to college.
I knew I wanted to be a play by play broadcaster specifically.
I wanted to be a hockey play by play broadcaster, which is really rare at that time in LA.
It's Southern California.
It's just, it's not a hockey market.
But I was eight years old when Gretzky got traded to the Kings.
And I kind of got, I had found the sport a little bit before that.
And then I just got swept up in that wave.
And hockey, I'm a huge sports fan across the board.
But hockey became my favorite sport.
Yeah.
And so I knew I wanted to do hockey play by play.
I had no idea how to go about doing it.
It was a very different time.
You couldn't just type into Google and find out the best avenue.
I didn't know anybody from that.
No, no, not at all.
And so I kind of, I stumbled into a few opportunities that I couldn't LA.
I wound up going to college in Arizona and doing as much as I possibly could and just getting whatever experience I could.
And then just sort of played hopscotch all over the country,
taking whatever the best job at the time was.
Which led you where?
The first one I was, I left Tucson as University of Arizona and went back to LA just
while I was figuring everything out.
And wound up taking a cassette demo reel that I had worked for a couple of games of club hockey,
which is, it's not division one, right?
It's club sports, but that was the hockey team that they had at University of Arizona.
And I had done a couple of games.
I wound up being basically like the ice level reporter for a team my junior year.
They were on an ESPN affiliate in Tucson.
They had a play by play guy.
They had the program director at the station did color commentary.
The play by play guy actually sold appliances, but he was friends with the head coach.
That's what made him the play by play guy.
I was the only student there.
And I knew they were, they would draw about, you know, 4,000 people,
which wasn't bad for a club team.
And then when they would play Arizona State, there would be goalie fights.
So they would draw about 6,000 people.
And they aired their games on ESPN radio.
I was trying to get in doing whatever I could through the campus radio station,
all this sort of stuff.
And I remember just calling the ESPN station and saying, hey, my name is Josh.
I'm a student at University of Arizona.
I want to be your play by play broadcaster.
And they said, well, we have a play by play broadcaster.
And they said, okay, then I want to be your color analyst.
And they said, well, we have a color analyst.
I said, okay, but I want to be your ice level reporter.
And they said, well, we don't have a nice level reporter.
And I said, well, you do now.
I work for free.
When can I start?
And that's how they made me the ice level reporter.
And I got to do that for one season.
And as luck would have it, the ACHA, which was the American Collegiate Hockey Association,
the club hockey was hosting their national championship tournament in Tucson.
So 12 teams from all around the country came to the Tucson Convention Center.
And we decided that we were going to do an internet broadcast of the entire tournament.
And so me, the play by play guy in the color analyst, we split up the format of all these games.
They weren't aired on the radio station except for the Arizona one.
And the other ones were just streaming online.
And those were the first full games that I ever had a chance to call.
I took those, my brother actually recorded the games on a cassette from Los Angeles off the internet.
And then I spliced together whatever awful material I could for like a five minute demo tape.
And when I graduated from college, I sent that demo tape to every minor league hockey team that I could find.
And the first one to call me back was the Corpus Christi Ice Rays of the Central Hockey League.
And I jumped in my two door Toyota Turcell.
And I drove from Los Angeles to Corpus Christi.
And I was, I think I had to go to MapQuest first to get directions to find out how to get there.
Because I didn't really know where it was and off she went.
All right. Now growing up in Los Angeles, you had options out there.
Lots and lots of options.
What was it about the game of hockey, the drew you in?
Honestly, it was attending one game, a friend of mine in elementary school.
He wound up, his uncle had season tickets.
And that's when they played at the forum.
They played the King, sorry.
And I honestly wish I could remember when it was.
Because I'm not even sure if it was before or after.
I think it was before the Gretzky trade, which was 1988.
I was born in 1980.
So I'm probably six, seven years old.
I have always loved sports.
I put me in an arena in a stadium.
I love watching it.
I was the kid that was just scrolling through channels.
If beach volleyball was on, like way past my bedtime,
I wanted to watch and learn the rules and then figure that out.
So there wasn't a sport that I wasn't into.
But going to a hockey game and knowing no rules and not understanding all of it.
But just being captivated by the speed of it and the excitement of it
and the energy that was in the arena, there was something about it
that I was drawn to in a way.
I don't want to say that was necessarily more than the other sports
because I was drawn to all of them.
But I just remember being in that arena and watching the game and just thinking
I want to know more about this.
And I want to see more of this.
And it wasn't so easy.
It seemed so crazy.
If anyone's listening right now that's significantly younger than I am,
it's an insane thought that if you wanted to learn about hockey,
there was no real avenue to learn about hockey in Los Angeles
rather than watching games.
And they weren't even all on.
It was kind of similar to a lot of markets at that time.
They weren't airing every single game.
If you weren't watching them live, you weren't watching them at all.
So I got to just sort of learn the game through the broadcast.
And that was cool.
If you had tried to do the same thing here, you would have run into exactly the same thing.
Yeah.
And I mean, from afar, once I realized you branch out and you learn a lot more
and the timing's pretty appropriate for us to be recording this
because USA hockey became something that I fell in love with.
And again, it was an underdog sport and an underdog group.
And with the, you know, the Kirk Gibson led Dodgers right down the road
and the Showtime Lakers right down the road.
You know, football was coming and going because it was a weird time with the NFL
and the Rams were in Anaheim and then eventually went to St. Louis
and the Raiders were up and down from SoCal to Northern California.
And there were other options for what you could watch.
And again, I watched all of it.
But I kind of, there's something I liked about finding this game
that maybe wasn't everybody's number one.
And then realizing that once people were introduced to it,
it had a really good chance of turning into one.
Because if you like sports, and again, I love them for my money,
I can't find a better one than hockey because it has,
it checks every box if you're a sports fan.
So once you started getting into hockey,
if you had had the opportunity to head off into play by play
for one of the more traditional sports like those others that you mentioned,
you would have taken hockey over that.
Believe it or not, I would have.
Now I did those other sports because again, when you're coming up,
you're doing whatever you can, right?
I mean, you know the drill, you do whatever you can.
So if they wanted me to call women's softball in college
and that's what I was doing, if they wanted me to cover the swimming and diving team,
then that's what I was doing.
If I'm covering the golf beat, then that's what I'm doing.
You're learning things on the fly, call arena football,
call high school football, call college football, minor league baseball.
You do whatever you can, but hockey was always my number one.
Because look, it wasn't the NHL or bus necessarily,
but I was chasing a dream.
Yeah.
And if you're going to chase a dream, you might as well go after the one that you would want the most.
And because hockey was my favorite sport, yeah, that was the dream.
Did you have opportunities from maybe another major league team
and baseball or basketball or football or anything like that?
I think I got far enough along with hockey
that that was probably the route for a major league team.
I definitely had opportunities for minor league teams
that likely could have changed the route.
Because again, you build a resume.
So if you've called 1,000 hockey games,
you're going to be a little bit more appealing to a hockey team
than necessarily a football team if you've called one football game.
I've called more than that, but the point is I started to run down this road
and sort of get some traction with hockey where then that became...
That was more your specialty and all that.
Yeah, because that's what I've done more than anything else.
But I still, even to this day, I don't do it as often.
But I love calling the other sports.
I still watch the other sports and I'm still a huge fan.
But hockey was always the number one.
What other sports are you kind of calling during off seasons now?
So I don't have a steady gig.
The Texas High School football game of the week came up with Victory Plus
and they needed play-by-play guy.
They know I've done that.
I did arena football in the past
and a few standout college games here and there.
A lot of times there's overlap with what I'm doing with the stars.
So if there's a college football game or a high school football game,
but it's not...
I don't have a slate of things that I'm doing.
You can do anything too.
Yeah.
I mean, you can do things if you got a contract with a network
before the season started.
But once the season starts, we're off and running.
Yeah.
Indeed.
I have a question on here that says,
what if somebody would have told you 10 years ago that you'd be the TV play-by-play boy
so the Dallas stars?
But it sounds to me like if somebody had told you that,
you just said great.
When do I start?
Yeah.
I mean, I would have said great,
but I also probably wouldn't have believed it.
You know, all of a sudden, this is year eight for me.
But when I came here, I came here as that ticket pre and post-game host.
And so where I was at that point in my career,
I had done 10 years of play-by-play broadcasting in the minors.
And I did it primarily in the Central Hockey League.
I wound up moving up to Anchorage, Alaska,
and doing three years for a team based out of Alaska.
They were called the Aces in the ECHL, which is funny,
because the ECHL at one point stood for East Coast Hockey League.
And I was in Anchorage, Alaska.
So go figure that out.
On the far floor.
Yeah, yeah, just a little bit.
But I had done all right for a minor league broadcaster.
I had gotten some decent recognition in the leagues that I was in.
And won some awards.
I had people telling me I was going in the right direction.
But then any time an NHL job would come up,
I felt like I was no closer to actually getting it.
There was one time in particular that an NHL job came.
And just as a really short backstory,
the Alaska job was a really great job.
Like it was for a minor league job, it was great.
Not all minor league jobs are great.
In fact, most of them candidly are not.
The Alaska job was so good because we did TV.
And you almost never do TV in the minors, especially not back then.
And the team, they flew everywhere because it's Alaska.
You're not going to bus.
But I'd rather spend 10 hours on a plane than nine hours on a bus.
And I had done a lot of bus trips.
And the team was just professional in a way.
That a lot of minor league teams weren't.
And we happened to really like the city of Anchorage,
the people of Alaska more than we thought.
When I first got the job opportunity,
I looked at it like a prison sentence.
I was going to go do my time, get what I needed,
and get the hell out of there.
And we wound up loving it in a way, Ryan said,
I can't adequately express.
Like it was so fantastic.
The cool things in life is when you run into something like that.
Yeah, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so for me, I was recently engaged at the time.
And my wife is a native Texan.
I'm from Southern California.
We had only lived in warm weather climates.
And then it was just this big flip around.
And I got the job offer.
And if I were going to take it, I had to move up there in two and a half weeks.
And it was just this crazy situation.
But we loved it.
And so the job in Anchorage was good.
The life was good.
The friends we made were good.
We want a championship up there, which was incredibly cool to be a part of.
Everything was going perfect.
And because the job was so good,
if you know the minor league rung,
the ECHL is kind of considered AA.
And then there's a step up that's called the AHL,
which is the Cedar Park Texas stars.
If you call someone up in the NHL or send someone down,
you're going to the American Hockey League.
That's AAA.
There's not as much movement as there is in baseball.
It's very hard for players to go from AA to the NHL.
It certainly doesn't happen regularly.
In baseball, AA tends to be a very developed middle place.
Huge.
Where a guy is going to either establish himself as a prospect or not.
Yeah.
And a lot of times it's just an age thing.
And that's where you are.
And the guys in AA might even have a better chance of making it down the road
because the AAA players are a little bit older and they've had their time
and they've had their look.
AAA is where they kind of stashed us now.
Right. Right.
And that's hockey is very, very different.
Again, it's not unheard of, but it's certainly not common.
And so I think there was a perception that with broadcasters
when people were hiring, it was kind of the same.
So I would look at these AHL jobs that would open up
when I was in Alaska.
And a lot of them, once I found out about them,
the broadcasting standpoint, they were worse jobs.
They were steps backwards.
Yeah.
The organization wasn't as strong, maybe the salary wasn't as strong.
There were a lot of things that it was going to be taking a step backwards for my life.
They weren't doing TV.
But I found myself when an NHL job opened up, there was one time I called a guy
and it was someone that I happened to know through someone else.
And we weren't close at all, but at least it was a contact.
And I remember asking if I could put my name in for a vacant play-by-play job.
And this was for radio at the time, not for TV.
And he just flat out told me, Josh, there's a stack of guys
that are in the AHL that I would look at before I looked at you.
And I understood where he was coming from.
I'm obviously trying to explain that if you can call a hockey game,
I think you can call a hockey game.
And I'm here because it's a really good place.
So then I started to have this kind of crisis of thought,
am I going to have to take a step backwards to take a step forward
in other people's perception.
And so when the pre-post game job came along in Dallas,
it was an opportunity to just sort of infiltrate the NHL circle.
That I had done all these things in the minors.
And I had kind of made a decent name for myself.
But what I wanted to do was break down that barrier
that at that point I had been unable to.
And that was getting anybody in the NHL to have any idea who I was.
There's something to be said for getting in with the incorrect.
Yeah.
And that's exactly what I was trying to do.
So to answer your question, it's a long-winded piece of backstory.
When I got the job, when I first even applied for the job,
I flew out to Dallas.
We were living in Alaska.
And I happened to be vacationing in Texas
and I was visiting my wife's family.
And so we planned the interview at the ticket studio
with Kat and with Jason Walsh,
who at the time was the head of the broadcasting department for the stars.
And two people I know well.
Yeah.
And two people who were pretty influential in my career.
And I didn't know either of them at the time.
I got an interview and I remember both of them saying to me,
you are a play-by-play guy.
You have been for your entire career.
This is not a play-by-play job.
And I said, I definitely understand that.
They said, we've had some experience in the past
where maybe we've known people who have been play-by-play broadcasters
come and take in jobs like this,
thinking it's a stepping stone.
That is not the case here.
In fact, I can guarantee you
you will never be the play-by-play broadcaster for the Dallas Stars.
And not so much in a mean way,
but in a we want to know before you uproot your life
what you're doing and what you're coming here for.
So if 10 years ago you would have told me
that I was going to be the play-by-play broadcaster
maybe like 13 years ago when I first got here,
I'd say there's no way because I was specifically told
that would not happen.
And so it's still kind of crazy to think about how it all worked out.
Well, that brings us around to another thing that I have on here
that we might as well.
Okay, let's go.
Another way your situation is different from a lot of people
who do what you do,
is that you work with a very tenured and very popular analyst.
Yeah.
He's been here since day one.
30 years, right?
Yeah, not quite day one.
I think it was 95, 96.
Yeah, that's right.
Somebody else was here in that first year.
But he was the one that they always had,
we were talking about Razor.
Sure.
He was the one that they always had their eye on.
But for whatever reason, they couldn't get him here in that first year.
They had to wait two year or two.
But as I say, he is very popular.
He is very unique.
He is very tenured.
He is very well connected.
And I'm kind of a groupie for the guy.
I will admit it.
Yeah.
Some might not handle that so well,
but you seem totally cool with it.
I mean, yeah, what's not to be cool with it.
Because when I wanted to do this,
it was hard to find regional play-by-play examples.
We talked about how it was a different time.
You weren't just flipping on highlights on your phone.
So it wasn't really well known who the regional guys were outside
of your market that you happened to live in.
And Ralph and Razor kind of transcended that at a time
that was very difficult to transcend.
So I knew from a distance who Ralph and Razor were
because I was fans of their work.
As a fan of hockey and as a fan of broadcasting,
I thought they were exceptional.
I thought they were exceptional separately
and I thought they were exceptional together.
When I came here, Ralph was still here.
I did not know that he had any plans on leaving
when I came here for the pre-post game job.
And then after one season on radio,
they wound up moving me into the TV pre-imposed position.
And so I did that for four years
and then eventually moved in.
So by that point in time,
I had gotten to no Razor more than just as a fan on the outside.
And look, you laid out the list of things that he is.
He's also a Hall of Famer, right?
He's really outstanding at what he does.
For my money and for a lot of people,
certainly in Dallas, but all over,
he's the best color analyst in the game.
He's entertaining, he's informative, he's fantastic.
And for me, when I first got here,
and I mean here into the position of Play-by-Play,
it was such an accumulation of this lifelong trek
and dream of where I was.
And the fact that I got to share a broadcast booth
with what I believed to be the best guy in the league
was only just kind of like one more surreal part of the puzzle.
So yeah, it was the thing about Razor
is that he's really, really good.
But I think he expects everybody that he works with
to also care as much as he does.
And we never had that conversation.
It was never a challenge that was like laid at my feet.
But I come to find out after working with him
and before that even listening,
that we both kind of approach the game in a similar fashion.
I don't like to be a homer.
I'm not a homer, but you also can tell
who I'm broadcasting towards, right?
And he's very similar to that.
I prepare a ton and I really, really try.
I think probably by virtue of the fact that most of my career
was spent doing games by myself in the minors
where you're the pre-game guy, the Play-by-Play guy,
the color guy, like the sales guy, the PR guy,
the marketing guy.
So I still prepare for games the exact same way.
And I think that when I got there,
I didn't know what to expect,
but the comment that I received that first season
that I think I was not expecting as much as I got
was that the chemistry with me and Razor seemed pretty instant.
And I think it's a testament again to how much we both care
and certainly, like, he's very good on the air.
And I knew that I was inheriting
a very, very good broadcast.
I just, my job was to make sure I just kept it going
and then it didn't screw it up, right?
And hopefully I have it.
No, no, you would not believe me.
But it was still impressive how quick it did feel like you,
you know, kind of hit that stride with Razor,
you know, going from Ralphie to Dave Strater to you,
you know, and Razor even doing Play-by-Play
for, was it a season or two season?
Yeah, it was basically, too, as Dave got sick.
But just the transition from each of y'all
and like the broadcast never really felt like a dip,
and then especially when you joined
it and within a few games, it felt like y'all
had been working together for a long time
and y'all just get better every year.
Yeah, I don't, again, first of all, thank you.
Like, that's still, I don't, it doesn't get old hearing that
because you always dream of getting your dream job.
But you don't really dream about what it's going to be like
once you do because you hope it goes well.
But it, that's not a given, right?
It could have, it could have gone sideways.
And I'm very thankful and fortunate that it didn't.
I also think that I felt prepared for the moment
because of everything I had done.
I know that nobody at the time in Dallas knew my background.
They weren't supposed to.
So I'm sure there were a lot of people,
I was actually told by a lot of people
that they were thinking, man, what are you doing?
Just moving the pre-game guy over.
That's not going to work.
And I understood all of that.
I also understood the gravitas of those
who had had that position before me.
And again, I'm a huge fan of all of them.
So it was more just having a confidence in my ability
once I got that chance and working with a guy
who's very, very, very good at what he does.
And then we found a space.
And I wish I had some kind of answer as to why people
felt that way right away.
I don't.
I'm just, I'm pretty happy that it worked out that way.
And here we are eight years later.
That's one of those don't overthink it.
Yeah.
Look, Razor was not going to change based on my arrival.
And I knew that that was the case.
And so it was, it was just me going in.
And as you said, not really trying to do anything other
than do what I do and still respect the broadcast as a whole.
And I think that that's another commonality
that he and I both have.
We want to make decisions that are better for the broadcast
as a whole.
Yeah.
And so, yeah.
And I think most of the time, that's what we've done.
And I do think it helped though, you know,
being part of the radio and TV pre and post game is
you got to know a lot of the people, you know,
behind the scenes and radio and TV at, you know,
the ticket ended Fox Southwest at the time.
And then the people at the arena,
because I believe you were doing the pre and post from the arena.
Yeah, for the home games.
Yeah, like I first met you when you moved over to Fox
and all that.
Right.
You know, so I think you did have a lot of people,
like myself, rooting for you.
And, you know, obviously I didn't have anything to do with
your preparation or anything like that.
But I think there was that extra a little bit of,
oh, hell yeah, Josh is awesome, you know,
like we've gotten to know him over four or five years.
We want him to succeed.
And I think you had, you know,
all the crew that was working the games, you know,
at least you had a little bit of that extra push maybe
that someone coming in straight off of, you know,
the minor leagues, one of that.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
And you pulled back the curtain too far,
because I was going to tell people that you were a hundred
percent the preparation guru.
Yeah, that's fair enough.
Good for you.
You know what, groups, it's amazing because that,
and you and I have known each other for a long time now,
that is something that we've never talked about,
but men a lot, and I felt it a lot,
when I did finally get that job.
Because it's as confident as I was,
if I'm being totally honest,
it's a nerve wracking spot to walk into,
especially knowing the level that this broadcast
had always been held to,
and not wanting to mess that up.
And I think that you're right,
if I would have gotten that job straight out of Alaska,
it would have been all of that
coupled with not knowing anybody,
and knowing the producer,
knowing the director,
and knowing the guys in the truck,
and knowing the audio guys,
and knowing the camera guys,
and knowing the A2s,
and knowing the stage managers,
and knowing the people at the network,
and knowing some fans,
and knowing people in the front office,
and knowing some of the players,
the coaching staff,
there was a lot of people that I could feel
did want me to succeed.
And when you get thrown into the deep end
in any walk of life,
I think it probably helps,
if you know that there's some people
who are kind of pulling for you,
and that doesn't mean that I couldn't have
absolutely tanked,
and then just burned in flames,
like I could have,
but it's interesting to hear you say that,
because you were one of them,
and while you didn't have any direct impact
on my preparation,
or my first year,
my first go-around,
I think you and a lot of people
who would echo what you just said
had a very, very strong,
indirect impact,
and I think I'll always be forever grateful
for all of you who did.
Yeah, because I can at least speak for myself.
I hadn't really heard your play-by-play word
before you could get over,
but like I said,
I knew you were a good guy,
I knew that you were someone
that I loved working with,
and whatever capacity
would have been happy to keep working with,
and seeing you move up to play-by-play,
it's like, again, hell yeah,
I don't know how it's going to go,
from the professional side,
I think I can speak for just about anyone
that was working with you at that time,
it was seriously,
let's go.
Well, again, thank you,
that's, that's very cool.
That happens to people like you, though.
Yeah, and make them,
that's the key word,
like force them,
like beat them into submission with it.
Yeah, I don't remember.
I don't remember the ultimatium,
yeah, the physical ultimatum that I gave you,
but I made you look.
Yeah, wait, I don't even know how to take that.
That's a backhanded compliment.
I don't eat that.
But it's a compliment, nothing less.
Yeah, I'll take you that,
that's how I'm supposed to take it.
I'm still saying you're wrong.
Ryan's answered, that's okay.
You know, Hockey is a very random,
very free-flow game.
And as I'm watching you,
listen to you call the game,
what I'm thinking of is,
how does, how can he tell so quickly,
what's important and what's not here,
because it all changes,
and it all changes in the blink of an eye.
It's such an interesting,
you know, part of Hockey Play-by-Play,
because when you first call games,
it doesn't matter how big of a fan you are,
like you have to get used to the tempo
of the sport that you're calling.
And Hockey has just a frenetic pace,
and it just goes from different levels of chaos and speed,
where offense switches to defense,
and back and forth,
and turnovers lead to quick scoring opportunities,
and you've got to be on the moment.
I think that of all the many things in the minors,
when I was first starting out,
that were the most important for me to learn,
what most people would probably find
is a surprising answer.
The learning of what not to call
was the most important thing,
and it only came through repetition.
Because when you first get there,
you're like, okay, it's my job to describe
every single thing that happens.
And very quickly, you'll realize that it's not possible.
And if it were,
you want to talk about beating the audience over the head.
I mean, you'd kill them into submission.
You'd beat them into not liking you.
It's the opposite of what I did with groups.
I think it was so instrumental,
and I don't know exactly when it happened,
but I remember my third year,
I had a friend in the minors
who was another play by play broadcaster.
He was a little older than me,
and he said that there is this light bulb moment
in season three,
where it just all started to just sort of slow down.
And I don't remember,
I think I'll allow myself to just say that,
because it's consistent with the story.
I don't know when it was,
but I think it's like anything else.
I hear quarterbacks that say,
at a certain point, the game just slows down.
It doesn't actually,
but it just does for you,
and you can sort of pick your spots.
And that doesn't mean that you're not going to throw an interception
that you're not going to make a mistake
on the air as a broadcaster.
But the game just starts to slow down,
and you watch enough,
it's like anything else,
where you can tell that,
if two defensemen are passing it back to each other,
that will give you an opportunity
to slide in a useful piece of information,
and you don't necessarily need to say that.
Or if you are already telling something
and providing a little bit of information
that isn't exactly play by play,
a statistical nugget that's dropped in during play,
and then a one-touch pass at center,
I spring someone in on a breakaway,
you'll just learn how to abandon how it got there
and quickly catch up to real time.
Because if you try and go back to the beginning,
you're chasing at the point that's the apex,
and you don't want to be doing that.
You can always go backwards,
almost like the way they used to teach you in AP journalism,
where you start with the lead,
and then kind of bleed down from there,
but don't miss the main point.
And again, as much as you try,
hockey's fast, and it's chaos,
and you can get caught,
because what looks like a very nothing time,
will turn into an outlet pass
that hits a referee's skate,
and now you're in on a breakaway,
and you know, you started,
you thought you had five seconds,
and it turns out you had 0.5,
and you got to pull the shoot and abandon ship
and just get back to what you're doing.
But learning what not to call,
and what would be okay,
and maybe just letting the game breathe,
was something that I had to do it
before I figured that out.
Yeah.
One of the things that I've learned
about hockey over the years,
I'll tell you that right after this,
because, sorry,
I screwed up there shooting.
No, you're doing great.
What I meant to say,
before I got into all of that,
is number one,
this is the great Josh Bogerod
with us here today.
Is it Bogerod or Bogerod?
It's Bogerod,
but believe me,
I've heard every way imaginable,
so I gave up correcting people
about 30 years ago.
All right, take two,
and three, two, one.
This is the great Josh Bogerod here with us today,
and we'll have more with Josh momentarily.
But right now,
do you know what time it is?
It is time for the dreaded
and feared mid-show read.
Don't be scared Josh.
It's really not that bad.
I'm taking your word for it.
All right, the teleprompter
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Is that it?
No.
All right.
Let us address those of you
who are in a little bit of pain
out there.
Maybe things got into the point
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but you don't want to go
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but you still hurt,
you need something.
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have you tried CBD yet?
I was in this very case myself,
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I myself not too long ago.
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CBD going to one of those places,
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pick up some zigzags
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and all of a sudden,
it's 1968 all over again.
It is anything but that
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they approach it all
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And if you were hurting,
go in there,
talk to their owner
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tell her what's going on.
And chances are,
she's going to have something
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The reason I know this,
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Now, she'll do that for me.
She'll do that for you.
Look, you got nothing to lose.
So go to the CBD House of Healing.
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Is that it?
Is that it?
Is that good?
Yeah.
We are fully leveraged.
You think that's some commerce
right there?
Oh, yeah.
All right.
Get back to Josh Boger
out here.
I'm really enjoying this, man.
It's great to talk to you.
It's great to talk to you.
It's great to talk to you.
One of the things
that I learned
about the Game of Hockey
when they came here.
And, you know,
they're at the ticket.
And our fair share of interaction
with people in the organization.
Is that the people inside it
are very, very accommodating.
I didn't think that would necessarily be the case,
but I just didn't know any of them, you know?
But I found that they were ready
to help you out however they can.
Is this a Canadian thing
or do players and coaches
and executives just have a great understanding
of what they can do
and what they need to do
to get the game out there?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if I want to throw the American
and the European guys under the bus.
I don't know what it is,
but there is something there.
Like I said, I've covered other sports
and there is a different feel
inside hockey.
There's just,
like you mentioned,
there's a feeling that's almost tangible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I feel like I'm butchering
a lot of these questions you're asking me
because I'm a great, no, no, no,
I'm agreeing with you,
but I can't explain why.
I don't know why that is.
I think, you know,
maybe it's that there's sometimes
maybe even to the sports
marketing detriment.
And this is certainly not gospel.
This is maybe just a theory.
But there's such a we team mentality
more than an eye mentality.
And it's almost like beaten
into the hockey culture that it's us
and it's and, you know,
we're recording this a day
after the U.S.
one gold.
And if you...
Which I want to get...
Yeah, I would love to.
It was amazing.
But if you look at the fallout
and the aftermath of that
and all the guys talking about each other
and look,
that happens every championship.
You're going to Super Bowl,
College Football World Series,
like NBA.
You hear the deflection of praise.
But it seems like it's just taken
to another level.
But not every room is the same
but a lot of hockey rooms
just filled with some really good people.
And I've been fortunate enough
to cross paths with quite a few.
It's really been neat to watch.
Yeah, it is.
It's neat to watch.
It's neat to experience.
It's neat to be a part of.
And I feel like I have to...
I have to kind of add
that I'm not...
Anytime I say something great about hockey,
it's not a derogatory statement
towards the other sports
because I am a huge fan of all of them.
But there is something
that initially attracted me to this game
and it wasn't that at all
because you didn't know.
But then once you get inside of it,
you start to see that too.
And there's definitely something there
that's cool to see up close.
You know, over the years,
we did the coaches show.
Yeah.
And that's where, you know,
I got to know some of the people
inside the game.
Like Ken Hitchcock,
who probably taught me
more about the sports consciousness
and the sports psychology
than any other guy I've ever known has.
He was one Lindy Ruff,
was another.
And, you know, we just had good relations
and good interactions
with these guys over there.
Yeah.
And the stars have had some great personalities
roll through here, right?
In terms of players and coaches and GMs.
I mean, the stars,
that 99 cup winning team,
you could do documentaries
on the personalities that were in that room.
And you look at the history
of hockey and Dallas.
And there have just been some great people
that, if you're going to introduce
a new sport to a market
that were almost perfect
for helping to do that.
I know the relationship
that you guys had
with the radio station
and the team was,
was really influential
on helping to grow the game.
The immediate success
that they had was really influential.
And then people getting to showcase
the personality that you're talking about
was also really influential.
Yeah.
The stars have always
simulcasted on radio and TV.
And that alone sets you apart
from others in the market
who do what you do.
Now, I would think that you knew
when you took the gig
that that's the way it was going to be
because I can't ever remember
it being any other way.
Yeah, it hasn't.
It hasn't?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It predated me.
And yeah, that was
when I talked about the job in Alaska.
And them doing TV.
They did TV as a simulcast.
So I got to do three years
as a simulcast in Alaska.
So you came down here
knowing how to do this?
Yeah.
And again, I didn't come down here
to be the play by play broadcaster.
But when the sequence
of events happened
that led me to that role,
that was one of the other parts
of my career that I could
lean on for experience.
There is no perfect way
to do a simulcast
because there's no perfect way
to do a broadcast.
There's no perfect way
to do strictly a telecast
or a radio broadcast.
It's a very subjective medium.
What you want might be different
than what he wants
might be different
from what they want
and just add that to a million.
You can't possibly please everyone
because some people
you go back to the homework conversation.
Some people want you to sound like,
you know, your dog died
when your team gets scored on.
And some people want you
to yell at the ref
when your team gets a penalty
and then other people don't want that.
And if you have that,
then how can you possibly
please both at the same time?
And the answer is,
you can't.
So what I try and do
is call the game the way
I would want to hear it
as just a general rule of thumb.
And then with the simulcast,
if you listen closely,
I'll probably give more description
on a TV call
than some other TV broadcasters.
I might tell you that it's the left circle
when it is they wouldn't.
Yeah.
I might tell you that, you know,
it's, I might just drop in
that the puck is in the star's defensive zone,
which the television audience
can pretty clearly see.
I try and do enough.
I might give the score in the time
more than you would
if it's just stapled on your screen
and a traditional TV broadcast.
But I also try and not do it
to the point where again,
you're beating your audience
over the head with it.
And it's finding that sweet spot
of probably giving
a little bit more
than a normal TV play by play
and a little bit less
than radio play by play,
exclusively,
but also doing enough
to where you can still follow the game
and those extra details
are in a burden to listen to
where you're not jamming too much
into your audience.
And I think that's another way
that Razer and I talked about
some of the commonalities
that we have
and the way we approach the game.
There's with such a subjective medium
that I would never be someone
that really likes to critique
how other things are done,
because there's so many
right ways to do this.
There's not just one.
But the way that I like to do it
is by keeping the game
as the focus and truly
the overwhelming focus
where Razer and I
will have some fun
and play off of each other,
but then it's very quickly
back onto the game.
And you pick your spots
on that,
but you'll never hear Razer
and I spend five minutes
talking about something
other than what's happening.
We won't go off on tangents
that last more than a second
here there
if the opportunity presents itself.
And I think that
that allows you
to pull off the
simulcast in a sport like hockey
because the play-by-play
is really the play-by-play
whereas in baseball
that's not necessarily the case.
You don't have to call
every pitch the same way
on TV and on radio.
So the game lends itself
to be able to do that
if you could find a sweet spot
and hopefully we do.
I think you do.
Well thanks again.
I got to tell you though,
I've not enjoyed this
two-week vacation you've had
in the middle of the season.
Because I've become a
hockey fan and I have missed
not having the stars
on TV in these last days.
That is why I came here
to just personally sit here
and kind of break up
that mundane two-week break
for you.
So I'm here to give you
the live version, right?
I appreciate that.
Did Team USA catch you
there?
No.
But I was very happy to see it.
I told you that,
and again,
I know people involved
with hockey Canada.
The people who I love
and I want good things for.
So it's very different,
same with Team Finland.
It, hockey is a small world
but I'll tell you where I was
when the US won gold.
My son had a,
both of my boys play hockey
and my 10-year-old
he had a hockey game that morning.
And we were at the
rink and we were watching
on TV with a bunch of
youth hockey players
in Dallas.
And adults were there,
obviously, but these kids
were watching the game
and before the goal happened,
they were watching
and they're chanting USA
and some of them were
wearing USA jerseys
and USA hats.
And they're watching this game
on a Sunday morning
in the Metroplex
and hanging on every single play
and living and dying with it.
And I loved seeing that.
And I loved it.
I would have loved seeing
it no matter what the result was.
But I remember,
I was 16 years old
in 1996 when the US
beat Canada and the World Cup
of Hockey.
And the World Cup of Hockey
is not the Olympics.
But if you were a hockey fan,
it was a best on best tournament
and these players wanted to win.
Mike Madonna was on that team.
There were many,
many stars that were on that team.
As a kid in Los Angeles,
I became a huge fan
of so many Dallas stars
because they were such a huge part
of this, this heyday
of USA hockey
up to that point.
I wasn't around
for the miracle on ice.
I was born a month after that happened.
And certainly,
like no recollection
of like growing up
in a hockey household
because my mom and dad
didn't introduce me to the game.
So I had to learn
about all that stuff retroactively.
But I remember the 96 World Cup.
I remember watching those games.
I remember being on the edge of my seat.
And I'm a little bit older
than my kids are now
but watching them
and watching that room explode
when Jack Hughes scored.
And then having the ability
and the age that we live in today
where you could go online
and see all of the bars
and all of the living rooms
that exploded in the same manner.
With kids who were younger
than my kids
and older than my kids
and people who are my age
and watching that
and having everyone celebrate that
and to know that it was the first time
since the miracle on ice.
I mean, the first time in my lifetime
that the U.S. men won gold in hockey.
And that's a crazy thought.
And it's not that they caught me
by surprise.
Look, it was a one-goal game
decided in three on three over time.
You play that again
and it's a coin flip
and Canada could have easily won that.
They could have won it in regulation.
The U.S. also could have won it in regulation
even though they were out-chance
and outshot.
They hit the post on the favor
shot that Gensel redirected.
I know that was overshadowed
by all the Canadian chances.
But sitting here next to you
as the play-by-play broadcaster
of the hockey team in Dallas, Texas
and watching the scene
at a local rink
when that played out
in the gold medal game.
And knowing that the only reason
I'm sitting here
is because I fell in love
with the sport
because I was introduced to it
by a buddy whose uncle had
season tickets 40 years ago
and I got to go to a game
in Los Angeles
and then I got to get swept up
in moments,
like Gretzky getting traded to L.A.
and then going to the Stanley Cup
final in 1993
and the World Cup
USA team in 1996.
And the only reason I'm here
is because the broadcast
taught me the sport
in Los Angeles
and I am a huge fan
of anything that can grow this game.
Because I truly believe
it's the best game in the world.
And it's worth repeating
that that's not as slight
at any other sport.
My kids play other sports.
We all watch other sports rapidly.
I go to arenas and I go to stadiums
and I'm fans of other sports
passionately.
Like it's a huge part of my life.
And there is just simply
something about hockey
that is so phenomenal.
And I think the only thing
holding it back
is exposure
to a certain segment of people.
And I think that
when Team USA
gives you something to root for,
I think and I hope
that come playoff time.
We're going to have some Dallas stars fans
who maybe weren't Dallas stars fans,
but can be will be.
And they're going to get that introduction
that I got all those years ago.
And I think that
that only happens
as an accelerant
if USA wins.
And so I love
that that moment happened.
And I love that my kids
forever have their moment
of where they were
when 2026 gold was struck.
I must tell you
that when I first found out
we were
the night where
the city woke up
the next day
and somebody had left a hockey team
on the front porch overnight.
Ever since then,
I mean, it's taken me a long time,
but now
I will freely admit
I am a fan.
Yeah, then I am a fan of the game.
The game has drawn me in.
We need more people like that.
I never get tired.
I think
because of where I came from
and how I learned the sport,
I wasn't born into it.
I didn't have a backyard rink.
Like I had to find this sport
and just kind of organically
develop a love for hockey.
And every year
since I've gotten to Dallas
whether I was hosting
or doing play by play,
every year people
will come up to me
in the arena
and tell me that
this is my first game
or you know,
this is the first year
I've really followed a lot.
And I didn't grow up a fan
and now I'm here.
And I love that comment
so much because I know
firsthand what the feeling
is like to be introduced to the sport.
And it gets you, man.
It does it ever.
It does it ever.
It gets its hooks into you.
It draws you in.
And then the playoffs,
look, the stars,
they had these three great runs
to the conference final.
You want to be,
you want to be
the American Airlines Center
for a stars playoff game.
It is,
it's epic.
It's fantastic.
There is not much like it for sure.
Every spring that rolls around
and I know this city went a long time,
a decade and a half ago,
without playoff hockey.
And you don't ever take it for granted.
And when it comes back,
it is,
man, it is,
I love being in that arena
for the playoffs
and just soaking it all in
because it's the best.
I think the best way
to sum up playoff hockey
is with a tweet from John Boyz,
I believe,
with SB Nation
from about 10 years ago.
It's great.
Why watch overtime playoff hockey
when you can sort,
simply snort cocaine
and ride a motorcycle
out of a helicopter?
Yep.
He nailed it.
10 out of 10.
10 out of 10.
And every April,
you see that tweet
gets circulated, right?
And reposted
because it's accurate.
And you'll have the end to end.
And you know what?
You might as well have been
riding the same motorcycle
on Sunday morning
during the US Canada game
because that's what it was.
It was,
it was game seven
with a gold medal on the line
and it's the greatest.
It really is.
It was awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Josh,
thank you, man.
Thank you for doing this.
Thanks, right?
This was an absolute pleasure.
I really,
sincerely appreciate being here.
Man, I really,
it's been great to get to know you
and learn
as much as I have
about the game of hockey
from you, you know?
It's just been great
having you here
and having you as a part
of the sports fabric
here in our Fairburg.
Thank you.
It means, it means a lot
that told you the story
of how I grew up in the broadcast
was pretty influential
on me learning the sport.
So anytime I hear that,
it's,
it's not lost on me how,
how special it is
and what a privilege it is.
So thank you very much.
Magnum mistake.
You were teaching the game
to people out there.
Oh, thank you.
And I'm sorry to all the people
out there.
But thanks a lot, Ryan.
Thanks a lot, Ryan.
All right.
Josh Bogorod there.
This is your dark companion here.
Let's see,
do I need to tell anybody
anything else
or have already done all that?
You've done it.
I've done all that.
I've done everything
that I can possibly do here
to tear this thing down
and make it a bigger mess
than it already is.
You have done just about everything.
I have done just about everything.
Have a knife.
You have.
All right.
Well, that is it for us
for today.
Thank you very much for watching.
We do appreciate that.
It is your dark companion.
I'm Mike.
Till next time.
Bye.
All right.
I don't know what to do.
Pants off.
Your dark companion
is a stolen water media presentation.