Melrose had passed away at age 70<\/a> after a battle with Parkinson\u2019s disease, the news engulfed the hockey world in sadness.<\/p>\nIt was of course especially difficult for those who were in his orbit, and knew him to be everything in real life that made him so likable on our screens. <\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I\u2019m still messed up,\u201d said Steve Levy during a phone conversation Friday.<\/p>\n
Levy worked alongside Melrose on ESPN\u2019s NHL programming for decades, including every Stanley Cup Final from 1994-2022. <\/p>\n
They were such close friends that Melrose\u2019s wife, Cindy, reached out to inform him of her husband\u2019s death. He passed along the news to ESPN management.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew this day was coming,\u201d said Levy. \u201cI knew things had not been good. I\u2019ve lost friends before, people I grew up with, but to lose somebody like Barry, whose such a public figure and who I have such an association with for decades \u2026 I\u2019m still working through that. There are just so many memories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levy said he recognized Melrose\u2019s television talent immediately when they first began working together in the mid-1990s. <\/p>\n
\u201cListen, I\u2019m no fool,\u201d said Levy. \u201dI absolutely attached my wagon to him, and I was smart enough to ride his extremely oversized coattails. Career-wise that was certainly a good move, but I grew to love the man. You start out in this business and you\u2019re a colleague first and then, with any luck, you become friends. But it\u2019s really rare to go from colleague to friend to family, and that\u2019s how we did it. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery life event he\u2019s had in the last 30-plus years, I\u2019ve been at, and vice versa. My kids called him Uncle Barry. I just can\u2019t believe I\u2019m never going to hear that big laugh again. It\u2019s really upsetting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levy\u2019s fellow longtime ESPN studio host, John Buccigross, was also close with Melrose. The three are rightfully credited for keeping the NHL in ESPN viewers\u2019 consciousness during the 17 years the network did not have its broadcast rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I found out, I couldn\u2019t say three words without starting to cry,\u201d said Buccigross by phone Friday. <\/p>\n
He was at a rink in Las Vegas, recording interviews with players and working on other material for the upcoming NHL season. <\/p>\n
\u201cSportsCenter asked me to be on that night,\u201d said Buccigross. \u201cI couldn\u2019t. I just knew I would not be able to get through it. He was my best friend at ESPN.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buccigross said people were drawn to Melrose in part because he had the look of a star but the personality of someone who never forgot where they came from.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was this kid from tiny Kelvington, Saskatchewan, [population of approximately 900] who made it big, probably beyond his wildest dreams, but never forgot his roots,\u201d said Buccigross. \u201cHe looked like a movie star, straight out [of] central casting, and had that star power mixed in with that farm boy humility where he never had any airs at all. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe took every picture, signed every autograph, never said no to anything. He would be as friendly to the guy who couldn\u2019t do anything for him as he would to the guy that wrote his checks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levy said that\u2019s exactly it. <\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, he came from a pig farm in Kelvington. There\u2019s no more everyman than that right?\u201d said Levy. \u201cYet on the other hand, he\u2019d wear a $2,000 suit, and his tie was crisp and perfect, and his shoes always shined. He liked the finer things, but he never lost the ability to relate to the regular guy with the mullet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levy paused for a moment, then continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what he was, ultimately, in real life and on TV?\u201d pondered Levy. \u201cThat guy you want to sit and watch a game with and have a beer or two and some laughs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what you\u2019re judged on as a broadcast team. Can you give that feeling to the guy at home? Barry led the league in that, all leagues, every year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chad Finn can be reached at chad.finn@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The dual mission seemed to be to share his love for the sport, and the insight gleaned as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[6755,385,23640,4196,99,8015],"class_list":["post-845633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-show","tag-shows","tag-sports","tag-talent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}