Sean McDonough has become synonymous with ESPN’s NHL coverage.
Even with some health setbacks that sidelined him this season and the year prior, he’s got no plans to step away or even step back. And why would he? He was at the top of his game calling Game 7 of the Colorado Avalanche-Dallas Stars series, so much so that Joe Buck was effusive in his praise.
Sean McDonough gets asked all the time how much longer he’s going to keep calling games. He just turned 63, so you might expect him to be thinking about slowing down. Nope. Not even close. The veteran announcer still has his proverbial fastball as ESPN tasks him with calling the biggest games in hockey and college football.
“People ask me, ‘How much longer do you want to do this?’ I just turned 63. And I will happily say that Kevin Harlan (McDonough’s former roommate) is older than me, by the way. And I always will. But I think we’re both still pretty energetic,” McDonough told Nick Kostos on You Better You Bet on Audacy’s BetMGM Network. “And I hope we both still have our fastball when it comes to doing our jobs well.
“But why would you stop doing this when you get to do games like that? Or last year, we had Game 7 of a Stanley Cup final — these same two teams. Even in January, the College Football Playoff rolls around. The first time they’re ever going to have games on a college campus at the highest level of college football playoff games. And we get to do the very first one, and it’s a night game on a glittery night at Notre Dame?”
After Indiana lost to Notre Dame in the opening round of the first-ever expanded College Football Playoff, McDonough pushed back on the idea that the SEC and Big Ten are clearly head and shoulders above everyone else, particularly the Big Ten. But it was his criticism of Indiana, in particular, that didn’t sit well. He later admitted he “felt bad” for dogging the Hoosiers on air and walked back the criticism.
McDonough learned to roll with those punches and embrace the unpredictability of the job.
Opportunities don’t always come on schedule, and sometimes you just have to be ready when they fall into your lap.
“You never know what’s gonna happen,” he said. “You never know what’s gonna unfold in the game. You never know what kind of opportunity you’re going to get next. This NHL thing basically fell in my lap four years ago. I never thought I’d do another NHL game. I was hoping we’d get it back, but you never know. And we got it back, and now I’m having all these great experiences doing it. We’re really blessed.”
That’s just how the industry works. For better or worse, the breaks come when they come. For McDonough, getting back in the NHL booth wasn’t guaranteed. It fell into place, and he’s been making the most of it ever since.
Which is why he has no plans to slow down anytime soon.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.