By Donald Laible
It’s hard to imagine listening to Rochester Americans hockey games on the radio without Don Stevens’s voice calling the action.
Next week, the puck drops on the 90th season of the American Hockey League, the National Hockey League’s primary developmental league. The Americans, also known as Amerks, will ring in their 70th AHL campaign on Oct. 10, at home opposing the Toronto Marlies. Americans fans—whether they are plugged into mobile devices inside the 12,000-plus seat Blue Cross Arena or following the game elsewhere—will be listening to their friend Stevens doing the talking. Stevens has been synonymous with professional hockey in western New York from as far back as most fans could remember. Since the Amerks’ 1986–1987 season, Stevens has been the voice fans have learned to trust, and wait for each fall to welcome in another season.
In a city where mega corporations such as Xerox, Western Union, and Eastman Kodak grew into multinational game-changers, Amerks hockey has been an entertainment staple. As the longest tenured play-by-play broadcaster in AHL history, Stevens has had a front-row view of the league’s expansion. During Stevens’s rookie season with Rochester, bus rides went through team towns such as Hershey, Pa.; New Haven, Conn.; Baltimore; and four cities in Eastern Canada. Today, with 32 AHL franchises, Cleveland; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Winnipeg, Manitoba; San Jose, California; and Chicago are among the larger cities that are embracing hockey one step below the NHL.
Stevens plans to retire in April, and his decision is no surprise to Amerks management. He has kept the team in the loop for some time now.
“It’s been kind of coming for the last couple of years,” Stevens, 78, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 30. “I finally reached the point where I was looking at myself, and my work. When I listened to audio clips of my play-by-play, I wasn’t happy. I didn’t sound as enthusiastic as I would have liked.”
Stevens said the Amerks’ front office has been very respectful and understanding in allowing him to plan his exit. Two staffers whom Stevens points out as being exceptionally kind are Chad Buck, vice president of business operations, and Ryan Harr, manager of community and public relations. Stevens’s own honest critique of his work is rare in sports broadcasting. Being able to plan one’s own retirement is even more rare. The respect shown to Stevens by the Amerks and their parent team, the NHL Buffalo Sabres, shows how much he is appreciated by the hockey community.
AHL President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Howson offered high praise for Stevens’s work and his overall contributions to Rochester hockey over the decades.
“There is something uniquely special about the relationship between a team’s broadcaster and its fans,” Howson said in a recent press release. “Don has provided the soundtrack for literally generations of Amerks fans, guiding them through all the indelible moments that have defined the franchise over the last 40 years. We look forward to help celebrate his career this season.”
How Stevens arrived on the shores of Lake Ontario for the start of the Amerks’ 1986–1987 season, which would see Rochester win the AHL Calder Cup championship in his rookie year, is a fascinating journey.
“I was in Salt Lake, with the Golden Eagles; the International Hockey League,” he said. “That’s when I heard from Rochester general manager George Bergantz asking if I would be interested in coming to his team. At the time I had three offers—Adirondack [Glens Falls, N.Y.], New Haven, and Rochester. Right off, I informed Adirondack that I wasn’t interested. I had a family of five to think of. Finally, Rochester won out.”
And Rochester is where Stevens plans on remaining after stepping down from his public life. Although he has three rental properties in Jacksonville, Fla., Stevens cites his family living in the Rochester region and a climate that doesn’t have hurricanes or tornadoes as the leading contributors to staying in western New York.
Along with the tiring travel grind, Stevens is blunt about another factor that has led to his decision: his health.
“I’ve had several medical procedures in recent years that are tiring me out. The last thing I would want is to embarrass myself or the organization. It’s better to go out before any of that could happen.”
During his stay in Rochester, Stevens has had the opportunity to call one NHL game, as the color commentator during a 1992 Sabres-Blues game in St. Louis.
“It felt great,” said Stevens. “I had a great response from the Sabres, and from their owners the Knox Brothers.”
Stevens plans to work all 36 regular-season Amerks home games this season but is open to working a reduced road schedule. In all likelihood, Amerks’ games with the Utica (N.Y.) Comets, a two-hour bus ride east of Rochester, and in Syracuse with the Crunch, 90 miles east of Blue Cross Arena, are the destinations that Stevens could make the road trips.
Already inducted into the Amerks’ Hall of Fame in 2011, and in 2023 having the press box at Blue Cross Arena named after him, Stevens isn’t quite sure how he’s going to get through his final AHL season. Having been at the call for more than 3,300 Amerks games as their primary play-by-play voice, and involved in broadcasting for 58 years, there isn’t much Stevens hasn’t experienced in the medium. Being with the Amerks for the last two Calder Cup championships remains a highlight.
Last April, New York Rangers’ broadcaster Sam Rosen retired after 40 years on the job. Now, another legendary hockey voice is set to bow out in the spring. Don Stevens will always be a voice of comfort for thousands of hockey fans, many of whom have never met him but feel as if they know him well.
