Many kids grow up dreaming of playing in their favorite professional league, imagining one day jogging out of the tunnel for the Green Bay Packers, climbing the steps of the dugout in New York Yankees pinstripes or skating onto the ice for the Boston Bruins. Some might dream of another future, though: behind the microphone as that team's play-by-play broadcaster.
But the weird thing about the NHL, in particular, is one's odds of becoming a player are probably better than becoming a team's announcer.
In the United States, there are only 24 -- soon to be 25 when Seattle enters the NHL -- television play-by-play jobs on the various regional networks, and only six of those gigs have changed hands in the past five years.