Brendan Burke is on the road again with the Islanders -- and now Turner Sports
Brendan Burke is the Islanders' play-by-play announcer on MSG Networks and also calls hockey games for NBC Sports. Credit: NBC Sports
Islanders fans tend to have two reactions when they learn of Brendan Burke’s national television opportunities.
The second goes like this: Good for him! But the first goes like this: Will he miss any Islanders games?
The good news for fans of the team and its play-by-play announcer is that through the end of the calendar year, Burke is not scheduled to miss any of MSG Networks’ Islanders games for his new job at Turner.
That might and probably will change at some point in early 2022, at least on occasion, for Burke’s role as No. 2 on TNT’s new play-by-play depth chart behind Kenny Albert.
But for now, 2021 is clear of conflicts. Not that the logistics always will be easy.
Burke is set to call the second half of TNT’s opening doubleheader on Wednesday night, with Chicago visiting the Avalanche, then take an overnight flight from Denver to Miami and go from there to Raleigh for the Islanders’ opener against the Hurricanes on Thursday night.
It all is a small price to pay for the national TV exposure and for the chance to be back on site for road games after working the 2019-20 playoffs and the entire 2020-21 season off monitors.
"Oh, it is everything," Burke said. "It’s a game-changer. We kind of got, unfortunately, used to not being able to see everything the last year-plus. Now to feel like you have the handcuffs taken off of you while you’re trying to do your job is amazing."
Burke will be joined on the road by his longtime analyst, Butch Goring, but reporter/studio host Shannon Hogan and her Rangers and Devils MSG counterparts will not travel.
Being back on the road is especially important this season, Burke said, because the Islanders play their first 13 games away from home.
"Not being able to watch your team play in person for almost a quarter of the season would certainly feel odd and make you feel disconnected," he said.
"To be able to follow them around on this 13-game road trip, which is going to be historic one way or the other, is kind of a perfect way to get reintroduced onto the road."
No one in the NHL was surprised by Turner signing Burke, but he said there were no guarantees in his mind when the league's rights moved from NBC to Turner and ESPN.
"I had no idea what it would mean for me," he said, "if that was going to be the last national hockey game I ever called. Broadcasting is so subjective, and there are so many talented broadcasters in the NHL."
Turner was sold, though, and paired him with analyst Darren Pang.
Burke, 37, is entering his sixth season on Islanders games. His contract was up after last season and he attracted interest elsewhere, notably in Chicago, but he opted to remain with MSG.
"This was always my dream job," he said. "I was certainly flattered with some of the interest from other places during the offseason, but I always wanted to make it work here."
He said MSG executives helped make it "a place where I can stay and be here forever, so really happy that it worked out where I was able to stay with the Islanders here long term."
Burke has been popular with most fans from early on. He said he expected some growing pains and was unsure how he would be received as a little-known "American Hockey League radio guy."
But he said fans quickly discounted where he came from and instead focused on his work.
"The only thing I ever wanted from Islanders fans was for them to forget as quickly as possible that I was the new guy," he said. "That kind of happened even quicker than I expected it to happen."
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
