{"id":886576,"date":"2026-09-10T06:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886576\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T06:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:08:14","slug":"barry-melrose-dead-espn-analyst-former-nhl-player-coach-was-70","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886576\/","title":{"rendered":"Barry Melrose Dead: ESPN Analyst, Former NHL Player, Coach Was 70"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBarry Melrose, the blue-collar NHL defenseman who brought flash to the Los Angeles Kings<\/a> as their coach and fun to ESPN<\/a> during his nearly three decades as a colorful hockey analyst, died Wednesday. He was 70.<\/p>\n

\n\tNHL Commissioner\u00a0Gary Bettman confirmed Melrose\u2019s death in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cFrom the flowing locks of his distinctive mullet to the flared lapels of his trademark long suit coats, Barry Melrose cut an unmistakable figure whenever you were fortunate enough to run into him at a rink or catch him on your television screen,\u201d he said. \u201cYou were even more fortunate if you engaged him in conversation or listened to his analysis, because he never failed to boost your love of the game of hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe cause of death wasn\u2019t immediately available. In October 2023, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease<\/a> and was retiring.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve had over 50 extraordinary years playing, coaching and analyzing the world\u2019s greatest game, hockey,\u201d he said then in a statement. \u201cIt\u2019s now time to hang up my skates and focus on my health, my family, including my supportive wife, Cindy, and whatever comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a cigar-loving coach who sported a carefully groomed hairstyle (a mullet) and a closet full of $2,000 suits \u2014 a hockey version of the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 Pat Riley, if you will \u2014 Melrose took the Wayne Gretzky<\/a>-led Kings to the precipice of their first Stanley Cup in 1993 in his first season guiding an NHL team.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust 30 minutes after the Kings fired him in April 1995 near the end of his third season, Melrose was signed by ESPN to work as a studio analyst during the upcoming NHL playoffs. He called games part-time the next season before joining the network as a full-time analyst for the 1996-97 campaign.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen [people] watch me on TV, I want them to go, \u2018Geez, I\u2019d like to go for a beer with Barry Melrose and talk hockey. He seems like he\u2019d be very interesting,\u2019\u201d he told<\/a> the Los Angeles Times in 1995.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBarry Melrose coached the Tampa Bay Lightning for 16 games in 2008. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDoug Benc\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tHe left ESPN in June 2008 to coach the Tampa Bay Lightning, but that stint would last just five wins and 16 games before he got canned again. However, he was back on ESPN in 2009.<\/p>\n

\n\tMelrose and Steve Levy reported from every Stanley Cup Final from 1994 until 2022. When Levy announced on the eve of the 2023 series that his ESPN colleague would not continue that streak, it led some to wonder if he were ill.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor more than 30 years Barry was the unquestioned face\/voice of hockey in the United States,\u201d Levy said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cHe was a man of the people, a family man, a part of my family. Tonight I\u2019ll toast to the kid from Kelvington who made it big but never forgot his roots. Now he can drink all the Bud Lights, smoke all the cigars and play all the rounds of golf he wants to. Barry Melrose was the best of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe third of four kids, Barry James Melrose was born on July 15, 1956, in Kelvington, Saskatchewan \u2014 a town of 900 people located 400 miles northwest of Winnipeg, Manitoba \u2014 and raised on a nearby farm. His father, James, built a rink on their property, and Melrose started skating when he could walk.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen he was 5, he took his first stick to the face and got a black eye. Later, he sold four pigs so he could buy his first pair of Tackaberry ice skates. His favorite NHL player was Tim Horton, a defenseman.<\/p>\n

\n\tMelrose played three seasons of junior hockey with the Weyburn Red Wings and Kamloops Chiefs from 1973-76, then joined the Cincinnati Stingers of the World Hockey Association in 1976-77 after he was selected with the 37th pick in the WHA Draft. (He had been taken 36th by the Montreal Canadiens in that year\u2019s NHL Draft.)<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter 178 games over three seasons with the Stingers, he appeared in 300 NHL games with the Winnipeg Jets, Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings through the 1985-86 season, collecting 10 goals and 23 assists to go with a whopping 728 penalty minutes. At 6-feet and 205 pounds, he was not afraid to mix it up.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBarry Melrose in 1981 with the Toronto Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGraig Abel\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tHe finished his playing career with the American Hockey League\u2019s Adirondack Red Wings in 1986-87 and guided the Medicine Hat Tigers to the Western Hockey League championship in 1988 in his first season as a coach.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe then led the WHL\u2019s Seattle Thunderbirds for one season and Adirondack for three more, with the Red Wings winning the Calder Cup in 1992, when he also served as the team\u2019s G.M.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Kings, owned back then by the free-spending Bruce McNall, won a bidding war with the Detroit Red Wings, signing Melrose to a four-year contract in June 1992 to replace Tom Webster as their coach. The deal was worth a reported $1.3 million, believed to be the most ever paid for a first-time NHL coach to that point.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Melrose behind the bench, the Kings, led by Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, Jari Kurri, Dave Taylor and Marty McSorley, edged the Maple Leafs on the road in Game 7 of the 1993 conference finals to advance to their first Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHis idea of how the game should be played focused on speed \u2014 speed that would highlight the talents of the skilled players. I was in total agreement on that,\u201d Gretzky wrote in the foreword to Melrose\u2019s 2012 book, Dropping the Gloves: Inside the Fiercely Combative World of Professional Hockey.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe and I had a meeting of the minds on day one. From then on, it was a pleasure playing for him. Sometimes it was an adventure, because Barry was always willing to try things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSaid Robitaille in the 2012 book A Season in Time, \u201cIf Barry had his way, you would never take a backward step.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Kings would fall to the Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Final in five games, three of them in overtime, and miss the playoffs the next season. Melrose was fired in April 1995 \u2014 three months after Gretzky was traded to the St. Louis Blues \u2014 with seven games left in the regular season and Los Angeles desperate to make the postseason (it didn\u2019t).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Kings were also in a financial bind. \u201cWe used to eat at Spago,\u201d he told reporters, \u201cand now we can\u2019t even get into a Sizzler.\u201d His record with L.A. was 79-101-29.<\/p>\n

\n\tNearly 13 years later, Melrose exited ESPN to go to Tampa to replace John Tortorella, who in 2004 had coached the Lightning to its first Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think if I wouldn\u2019t have taken the job, I would have been a hypocrite,\u201d Melrose told<\/a> The New York Times. \u201cI\u2019m sitting up there criticizing other people [at ESPN]. If you have a chance to get back in the fight and you don\u2019t take it, I would have been very disappointed with myself to not have the courage to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut six weeks into the season, he was fired, and critics said he had lost touch with current strategies. Lucky for hockey fans, he would get a second shift on television.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a video narrated by Gretzky, ESPN paid tribute to him<\/a> after his retirement announcement.<\/p>\n

\n\tMelrose was sworn in as a U.S. citizen in March 1998, and in 2004, he and Levy became part-owners of the now-defunct Adirondack Frostbite of the United Hockey League.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe played himself in the Russell Crowe-starring Mystery, Alaska (1999), on a 2001 episode of ABC\u2019s Spin City and in Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice (2002).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to his wife \u2014 they first met when he was playing in Cincinnati and married eight months later in 1978 \u2014 survivors include their sons, Tyrell and Adrien.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an undated interview, Melrose noted that you need drive in any endeavor to be a success. \u201cIt\u2019s gotta eat you up,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cYou get out what you put in. If you put in nothing, then you will get nothing. If you put in tons, then you will get tons out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barry Melrose, the blue-collar NHL defenseman who brought flash to the Los Angeles Kings as their coach and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,794,7526,575,31481,85,56927],"class_list":["post-886576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-espn","tag-los-angeles-kings","tag-nhl","tag-obituaries","tag-sports","tag-wayne-gretzky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}