Fred Cusick
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Fred Cusick (b. November 7, 1918) is a former ice hockey broadcaster and served as the Boston Bruins play-by-play TV broadcaster from 1971 till 1997 on WSBK-TV (Channel 38) in Boston, and from 1984 until 1993 on NESN.
A graduate of (and former hockey player at) Northeastern University in Boston, Cusick went into the United States Navy in World War II, rising to lieutenant in command of a subchaser [1] he became the radio play-by-play broadcaster of the Bruins off-and-on (but more on than off) from 1952 to 1970, during which time he was also Sports Director for WEEI radio in Boston.
Cusick was the announcer for the first US network NHL broadcast (CBS-TV in January of 1957); he would spend four years in all working the NHL Game of the Week for CBS. [2]
In the early 1960s, Cusick was responsible for getting Boston Bruins' games on local television on a regular basis. Beginning in the 1963/1964 season, he edited tapes of Saturday-night Bruins games would be seen on Sunday, first on WMUR-TV in Manchester, New Hampshire (the signal of which covered most of the Boston area), then on the old WHDH-TV (now WCVB-TV) in Boston. Within a few years, games would be shown live on WSBK.
In 1971, Cusick succeeded Don Earle, who had been hired by WSBK when they began covering the Boston Bruins, as play-by-play man for Bruins' games on WSBK; when NESN was formed in 1984, he did double duty for a few years, calling games for both channels. In the last years before retirement, Cusick did games only for WSBK.
It was Cusick who did the television play-by-play of the last Bruins' game at the old Boston Garden (a pre-season game against Montreal in 1995) and the first Bruins' game in the TD Banknorth Garden, the 1995-96 season-opener against the New York Islanders.
He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the first wave of media honourees in 1984, and in that year was also named the first winner of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award (along with Danny Gallivan, Rene Lecavalier and Hewitt himself), "in recognition of members of the radio and television industry who made outstanding contributions to their profession and the game during their career in hockey broadcasting." He has also won the Lester Patrick Trophy in 1988 for outstanding service to hockey in the United States.
In addition to his duties with the Bruins, he was the original Boston Patriots radio announcer.
He is best known for yelling "SCORE!" when a player scored a goal.
After retiring from the Bruins' broadcasts in 1997, he began broadcasting home games for the AHL Lowell Lock Monsters with former Bruin Brad Park as his partner. He retired for good as a sportscaster after the 2002 season at the age of 83.
His autobiography, Fred Cusick: Voice of the Bruins (ISBN 1-58261-981-6), was published in October 2006.
