New York Islanders: I Miss Howie Rose Calling Games

After a dramatic New York Mets win last night, it made me realize that I miss Howie Rose doing the New York Islanders games for MSG.

If you listen to the podcast, which you should check out right here, you’d know that in order to get my lack of New York Islanders sports fix I’ve been very into the Mets run right now. Last night, the team had their most dramatic win of the season.

Down three runs in the ninth, the Mets stormed right back winning on a Michael Conforto double. At that point, they were in a Wild Card spot, now just a half-game out.

After the game, I couldn’t help but relive the moments on twitter with the fans and watch the highlights. WCBS, the Mets radio home, put out the calls from Howie Rose in the ninth inning and they were phenomenal:

God, Howie Rose is so good on the broadcast. Both of these calls made me realize something: I miss Howie doing Islanders games.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Brendan Burke who is phenomenal. At 35 years old, he is part of the next generation of great broadcasters and the Islanders are extremely lucky to have him.

All I mean by this is that the Howie calls had me feeling nostalgic. For the older fans, it would be like them saying they miss Jiggs McDonald when Howie was doing games. It wasn’t a knock on Howie, it’s just who they grew up with and learned the game through. It was comfortable.

I know this is a bittersweet moment now because of who scored the goal but can we just appreciate the brilliance of this call (which happened to be his last as an Islander broadcaster) for a second:

There are countless others that are great, including his rants against the NHL after fight night, the Kyle Okposo Team USA snub, etc. Howie was the Islanders play by play announcer from 1995 through the 2015-2016 season.

Howie Rose is an underappreciated commodity in New York, especially with Gary Cohen getting a ton of love from Mets fans. My hot take, Howie’s better. Isles fans certainly miss Howie rose but we’re extremely lucky to have Shannon, Brendan, and Butchie running the show over on MSG.