Bruins
“I grew up a Bruins fan, and who had more fun than us over the last two decades?”
After 19 seasons as the play-by-play voice of the Boston Bruins on NESN, Jack Edwards is stepping away from the mic.
The New England native and longtime broadcaster announced his retirement following the end of 2023-24 postseason games on NESN, with Edwards ending a 45-year career in sports journalism.
“I grew up a Bruins fan, and who had more fun than us over the last two decades?” said Jack Edwards. “In collaboration with Bruins and NESN leadership, I recently decided that the time has come for me to finish my shift as the voice of the Boston Bruins. I am no longer able to attain the standards I set for myself, to honor the fans, the players, the Bruins organization and NESN with the best they all deserve.”
“I retire from broadcasting not with a heavy heart, but gratefulness for a 19-year-long joyride,” Jack continued. “I owe my career, my own pursuit of happiness, to the love and support of my family. I thank every member of the Bruins and NESN for your loyalty, helping me to achieve and live out a lifetime goal, high above the ice.”
A fixture on NESN broadcasts since 2005, Edwards injected plenty of energy into his regular telecasts, often alongside color analyst Andy Brickley.
Several Edwards catchphrases like “tumbling muffin” and “high above the ice” became regular lexicon for Bruins fans, while his bombastic calls often punctuated some of the franchise’s greatest triumphs over the past 20 years.
Struggles with speech issues in recent seasons
Questions arose over the last few years regarding Edwards’ speech issues, with the usually sharp and vigorous broadcaster hampered at times by slowed enunciation of words and a disrupted cadence.
Speaking to Chad Finn of The Boston Globe earlier this season, Edwards said he had received no clarity from doctors as to the root cause behind his slowed speech.
“I did not have some kind of accident,” Edwards told Finn. “I do not have cancer. I don’t have dementia. I haven’t had a stroke. All of that’s been confirmed by Mass. General neurology.
“They’ve done tests that seem like I’m going through some sort of science-fiction scene, but it’s really true. The images of my brain literally reveal nothing. That’s my joke with them.”
Edwards stressed to Finn that he remained in “robust” health and that he graded out as “superior” on intellect tests his doctors administered to him.
“It doesn’t fit in any slot,” he told Finn. “There have been a couple of guesses, but they haven’t made a definitive diagnosis and they’ve been working on me for a year and a half. It’s very frustrating, as you can imagine, for me to have this slowdown in my speech.”
Decades-long career in New England
Before beginning his play-by-play career at NESN, Edwards was a fixture across several New England markets.
After holding several reporter and anchor positions in both New Hampshire and Rhode Island, he first broke into the Boston market in the 1980s as a sports anchor and reporter at both WCVB and WHDH.
He also worked as a reporter for ABC’s Wide World of Sports and Olympic coverage on both ABC and CBS. He joined ESPN in 1991 as an anchor and reporter for SportsCenter and won an Emmy award for his ESPN reporting.
In a release announcing Edwards’ retirement, the Bruins and NESN noted that they will conduct a nationwide search for the next play-by-play voice to join Brickley for the 2024-25 season.
Along with honoring Edwards during a pregame ceremony on Tuesday night, the Bruins and NESN plan to further celebrate Jack Edwards and his legacy during the 2024-25 regular season. More information will be shared at a later date.
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