Joe Micheletti reveals reasons for retiring as NY Rangers broadcaster

During a short break in the 2022-23 season, Joe Micheletti traveled to Fargo, North Dakota to visit with his older brother, Jim, who was battling incurable pancreatic cancer.

Two other brothers, Tom and Andy, joined him on the trip, where they were greeted by a doctor who suggested they speak with a geneticist.

"She comes in with a big easel board and puts it on the table," Joe recalled by phone last week. "She said, ‘I want to go through your family medical history.’"

Joe, Tom and Andy − three of nine Micheletti siblings who were raised in the blue-collar town of Hibbing, Minnesota − went down the list of family members who had been diagnosed with cancer over the years, beginning with their deceased mother, Mary, and sister, Jean, and extending to several aunts, uncles and cousins.

The geneticist was taken aback.

"She just kind of sits back in the chair and throws her hands up and says, ‘You guys have so much cancer in your family. It’s way above the norm,'" Joe remembered. "That all opens your eyes.”

Jim died a couple months later, followed by Tom the next year. A third brother, Don, was diagnosed in that hellish year-and-a-half period, leaving him in a paraplegic state.

That harsh perspective brought the idea of retirement to the forefront.

In his own quiet way, the fifth Micheletti child decided the 2024-25 season would be his last in the MSG Networks television booth. He spent the last 19 years as one half of a broadcast duo that New York Rangers fans will remember fondly, but the time has come to prioritize quality time with his family.

"The great Warren Buffett always said, ‘You can’t buy time,'" Micheletti said. "So, what are you doing with your time and how is it affecting your life? I didn’t get sick of the job, because we had a lot of fun. The best thing about it is once you get to the booth, they drop the puck and away we go. You forget about all these other things. It was just a culmination of the time, the external factors that were going on and what we wanted out of our life. We’re excited about the next phase."

How it started

That decision brings an end to a career that the 70-year-old said began "by accident."

His focus had always been hockey, whether that was winning a pair of national championships as a defenseman with the University of Minnesota, including being named NCAA tournament MVP in 1976, playing 200 professional games (142 in the WHA and 158 in the NHL), or suiting up for Team USA in the 1982 World Championships.

Shortly after his playing career fizzled, he received a call from the man he credited for planting the broadcasting seed − St. Louis Blues play-by-play announcer Dan Kelly, whom Micheletti referred to as "one of the great voices the game has ever had."

"He said, ‘I need somebody to do radio with me, and I think you could do it,'" he recalled.

The early years included plenty of "tough love," as he described it, including one memorable night in New Jersey during Micheletti's first season covering the Blues.

The two sat down for a postgame beer, with Kelly bluntly remarking, "You embarrassed yourself tonight."

Micheletti accepted the gruff criticism and tried to use it constructively.

One of the primary lessons was about digging deeper, rather than strictly relying on his own experience. "People are going to get sick and tired of you saying, ‘Well, when I played...," Kelly often reminded his young protégé.

He implored Micheletti to strive for better understanding of the players, coaches and systems he was required to explain to the audience. That taught him the importance of putting in the time to get to know the people he was covering and earn their trust, which he achieved with a grounded, gentlemanly approach.

"At a time when there was so much emphasis on either being controversial or saying something that gets your name out there or brought attention to yourself, I never wanted to be that person," he said. "I always tried to remind myself of what Dan Kelly told me early on. ‘There’s two teams. Be respectful of both. Be fair and be honest.’ I just thought that if I did that over the course of my career, that I would have respectful and honest relationships with people."

'A special partnership'

That humility endeared Micheletti to the hockey community and may explain why he chose to keep his retirement plans so close to the chest.

An accomplished broadcaster in his own right who covered five Winter Olympics and 25 Stanley Cup Finals and was recently nominated for a 2025 NY Emmy in the "Sports Analyst - Game" category, Micheletti preferred to let his longtime partner, Sam Rosen, soak up the adoration in his 40th and final season as the voice of the Rangers.

"I’m more comfortable with that than I am with any attention," Micheletti said. "And the other thing that I felt very strongly about was that Sam deserved that, and he deserved it on his own. He didn’t deserve any other kind of distraction that might have come with that."

Micheletti said his decision to defer to Rosen has "gotten too much play," adding, "There’s so many people that would have done the same thing." But there's no doubt the pair, who joined forces full time in 2006, will always be linked.

Micheletti had a front-row seat for Rosen's farewell tour while basking in the final days of what he deemed "a special partnership."

"The best part about the job was getting in the booth with Sam and calling the game," he said. "My greatest enjoyment was just sitting back and watching all of this and how much that meant to him."

Defining success

Micheletti was "99.9% sure" he was going to retire at the end of the season, which he'd been contemplating for years. About a week after the Rangers' final game − a 4-0 win over Tampa Bay at Madison Square Garden on April 17 − he informed MSG's senior coordinating producer Kevin Meininger that it was official.

He left on his own under-the-radar terms, with a prevailing feeling of gratitude.

"It’s been a great run because of all the people that I worked with and the people who helped make me better," he said while rattling off a list of former colleagues.

Micheletti and his wife, Kathy, have spent the summer saying goodbye to old friends from the New York area while preparing for a move back to the Midwest. They've decided it's time to live closer to their two children, Adam and Allison, and six grandchildren.

"We’ve been discussing and talking about this for the last number of years," he said. "We want to see and spend more time with our kids and grandkids."

In thinking about his post-broadcasting plans, Micheletti's mind drifted back to a visit with his parents when his kids were quite young.

A conversation with his father, Americo, has stuck with him all these years and will serve as a guiding force in retirement.

"We got talking about success in your life and how you view that," Micheletti recalled. "My father said, ‘For us, we have nine kids, and when they have time, they call us, and they come to see us. That’s been my great success.’"

"Now our kids are adults and parents, and they call us every day – every single day," he added. "At least once a day we talk to both of our kids, and we’re so fortunate that way. So, it’s just we want to see them more and we want to see their kids more. We think we can contribute to their lives."

Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Read more of his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Joe Micheletti reveals reasons for retiring as NY Rangers broadcaster