Q&A; : 22 Years of Making Kings Games Come Alive

F or years, Bob Miller was the best-kept secret in local sports broadcasting. Long considered one of hockey’s premier play-by-play men by those in the know, Miller spent most of the ‘70s and ‘80s working in anonymity as the television and radio voice of the perennially mediocre Los Angeles Kings.

But that all began to change after Wayne Gretzky was traded to Los Angeles in 1988. Today, NHL hockey is doing big business in the Southland, with both the Kings and the fledgling Anaheim Mighty Ducks playing to capacity or near - capacity crowds.

Hockey’s local ascendancy has resulted in long-overdue public attention for Miller, 56, who is in his 22nd year broadcasting Kings games. Last season, the Chicago native also received national recognition when he was chosen to do the play-by-play for several NHL games on ESPN and ABC.

In 1990, Miller ceased being the radio voice of the Kings in order to concentrate on his role as the team’s television broadcaster. This season, which was shortened by a lengthy labor dispute, 39 of the Kings’ 48 regular season games will be seen on the Prime Sports cable network. Miller is also the host of the Prime Sports program “Face-Off With Bob Miller,” the country’s only hockey talk show. *

Question: Did you ever think before Wayne Gretzky arrived that one day there would be two NHL teams in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas and both would be doing great business?

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Answer: It never, ever would have been in my mind. In those days, I wondered if this sport would ever really catch on. I thought it might happen if we had sustained success on the ice from year to year. But that never seemed to happen. Plus, we were on so many different radio stations. There were times when we would do a broadcast and you would wonder, “Who’s listening to this?”

Before Gretzky (arrived), I would go places and no one would ever come up to me and talk about the Kings. But since then, the profile of this team has become so much greater. There’s hardly a place I go now that people don’t want to come up and talk about the Kings.

Q: There have been many seasons in Kings history where fans knew right off the bat that the team would be lucky just to make the playoffs, even in a league where the majority of teams qualified for post-season play. How difficult were those years?

A: Somebody once asked Curt Gowdy, “Who’s the best play-by-play announcer you’ve ever heard?” He said, “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you he’s working for a winning team!” I have a lot of envy for guys that are with teams that, at the start of each season, have a good chance of winning a championship. It’s easier to get enthused about every game.

There have been seasons in my 22 years here when, you’re right, at the start of the season you knew “it’s going to be a long shot if we even get to the playoffs.” But what falls on the shoulder of the broadcaster is, you’ve got to go into each game thinking you might see something that you’ve never seen before. Each game is different. While it’s disappointing when the team isn’t winning, you have to look at your own work and set standards for yourself.

Q: I still vividly remember as a kid listening to that thrilling 1976 playoff game where (the Kings’) Butch Goring scored the overtime goal to beat Boston. That game really came alive in my mind through your radio description.

A: The highest compliment a play-by-play man could get is for somebody to say exactly that: “The game, when I listen to it, comes alive in my mind.” It’s too bad that youngsters today are getting away from that--listening to games on radio and letting the play-by-play announcer make it so vivid that, in your mind, the game comes alive. The great catches, the great goals, the great touchdown runs are all more exciting in your own mind than they probably are in person or on TV.

Unfortunately, with the glut of sports that’s on television, I don’t think many youngsters go to their room and turn on the radio and listen to a game. That’s a shame. When I was a kid, there wasn’t a lot of sports on TV, so you had to listen on radio. That’s kind of where my interest (in sports broadcasting) came from.

Q: Most longtime Kings fans recognize you as one of the best play-by-play men in hockey. Yet even in Los Angeles, you’ve been overshadowed in the past by two other great sports broadcasters, Chick Hearn and Vin Scully. Was that frustrating?

A: A little bit, except for the fact that Chick and Vin are tremendous announcers. I was always flattered if anyone compared me or put my name along with those two because they were so well liked and such great announcers. And it was Chick who recommended me for the job here (when both the Kings and Lakers were owned by Jack Kent Cooke).

Q: Is it true that you fell into broadcasting hockey when you were doing play-by-play for various teams at the University of Wisconsin?

A: I was sports director at a radio-TV station in Madison, Wis. (in the mid-to-late 1960s) and the hockey team was about the only team on the University of Wisconsin campus that was winning. So the program director came to me and said, “We’re doing hockey and you’re doing the game.” I grew up in Chicago so I had seen the Blackhawks in person. But watching a game was very different from doing the play-by-play of it.

The real challenge as a broadcaster was to keep up with the pace of the game but describe it at a pace where the listener can understand and enjoy it. I get tapes from young guys who want to be hockey play-by-play announcers and they think the faster they talk, the better they are. I tell them, “You’re talking so fast that if I were home or in my car listening, I couldn’t understand what was going on.”

Q: Have hockey players changed very much as interview subjects in the 22 years you’ve been with the Kings?

A: They’re much better now. When I started and we weren’t doing that much TV and players weren’t getting interviewed very much, you’d have a handful of guys who were comfortable in front of the camera. Today, an 18-year-old player can walk in and be on camera and seem as poised as some guy who’s been in the league 18 years. That amazes me. I think that has to do with them growing up in the television generation.

Q: There are many more multimillion-dollar contracts in hockey today. Have the attitudes of the players changed as a result?

A: Yeah, I’m starting to (see that). I don’t like it. I still think the hockey players are the most down to earth and the most cooperative (of the pro athletes). I’ve talked with writers and broadcasters who have done other sports, and they say the hockey players are still the easiest to deal with. But I’m seeing a little change now in that attitude. Certainly a lot of it has to do with agents and labor negotiations. A lot of us wish it was like it was years ago, when players were excited about the season and you read more about who wins and loses than you did about who’s in court and who’s on strike.

* Miller will be calling the Kings game Sunday against San Jose on radio station XTRA (690) at 3 p.m.