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Play-By-Play: Howie Rose’s 21 Years With the Isles
- Updated: May 20, 2016
Howie Rose’s decision to step down as the Islanders’ TV play-by-play announcer wasn’t an easy one. Rose, who’d been in the Islanders’ booth for 21 years, is also the New York Mets radio play-by-play announcer, a relentless schedule that often overlaps, giving the veteran broadcaster virtually no offseason.
He’d been considering scaling back his workload for a while and felt this past season would be his last. So when John Tavares scored the game-winning, series-clinching goal in double-overtime of Game 6 vs. the Florida Panthers, advancing the Isles to the second round for the first time since 1993, it reaffirmed what Rose was already thinking. He left the building on the ultimate high note, calling it the most significant and enjoyable Isles moment of his broadcast career. Rarely do any of us get that opportunity.
“When Tavares scored that goal I just went home with such a smile on my face, such a warmth because I know what it means to a lot of great people in the organization and to all the great fans,” Rose said. “And if anyone was perfect to finally get them over that hump it was JT, who’s a very special person and I hope is an Islander forever because he epitomizes everything that you want the leader and best player of a contending team to be. For him to have scored that goal had me go home thinking, if this is it, you can’t script it any better than that. It was the perfect way for me to go out.”
HOWIE ROSE ON JOHN TAVARES’ SERIES-CLINCHING GOAL Your browser does not support the audio element.
The news broke Wednesday, and on Thursday, Rose took stock of his two decades in the Isles’ broadcast booth, recapping all the memorable moments from the last two decades.
Rose remembers his first game, helping open the Fleet Center (now TD Garden) in Boston in 1995 and calling the game alongside the team’s first captain Eddie Westfall. Having already been a part of New York’s hockey scene, he had connections with many of the players from the early days and dynasty era, whom he credits with helping him in the transition. “I want to salute and thank from the bottom of my heart the Islander alumni for how unequivocally they seemed to accept me from the very beginning,” Rose said. “Even though I knew those players for a long time, going back to the beginning of the …
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