He was given the nickname, ‘The Big Ball of Hate’ by former New York Rangers teammate Glenn Healy, but Ray Ferraro is easy to like if you watch him work. Ferraro retired from the NHL just before the 2002 season after a rather successful 18-year run. Even before retiring he began talking hockey on television while still an active player. Working for ESPN as one of the more respected minds and voices of the game.
Ferraro returned to ESPN/ABC for the 2021-22 season as the lead color commentator for their NHL coverage.
Ferraro was born in Trail, British Columbia.
HOCKEY CAREER
Ferraro scored 408 career goals and recorded a 898 career points in 1,258 games. His 18-year NHL career included stops in Hartford, New York, for both the Rangers and Islanders, Atlanta, Los Angeles and St. Louis.
He was a 40-goal scorer twice, once scoring 41 in Hartford in 1988-89 and an even-40 for the Islanders in 1991-92. He also tallied a career best in points that season with New York, scoring 80 total. For those efforts, he was named to the NHL All-Star game in 1992.
Ferraro had a memorable Stanley Cup playoff run for the Islanders in 1993. He scored two overtime goals against the Capitals. The Islanders would knock off Washington and defending champion Pittsburgh in that postseason. He assisted on the goal that won the game and series in overtime of Game 7 against the Penguins. That goal advanced the Islanders to the Wales Conference Finals, which they lost to the eventual champion Montreal Canadiens. Ferraro finished that playoff season with team-leading totals in goals (13) and points (20).
ROAD TO ESPN/ABC HOCKEY
When Ferraro officially retired from hockey in 2002, he had already been working on some ESPN hockey broadcasts. He appeared on NHL 2Night with John Buccigross and Barry Melrose, while still an active player.
He later worked as a studio analyst for the NHL on NBC, was a color commentator on Edmonton Oilers broadcasts on Rogers Sportsnet and some other hockey programs on the network.
Ferraro has also worked as a color commentator and studio analyst for the NHL on TSN. He provided commentary for CTV during the 2010 Winter Olympics as well. After Pierre McGuire left TSN for NBC, Ferraro became the lead color commentator for their hockey telecasts. When Rogers Media, the parent of TSN’s rival Sportsnet, gained the national NHL rights in 2014-15, Ferraro became a color commentator for the network’s regional NHL telecasts.
When ESPN regained the rights to air NHL games, Ferraro rejoined the network and is a big part of their broadcasts now. Last year, Ferraro waxed poetic about his first foray with ESPN.
“I didn’t know it was a career at the time, I was still playing. I got to work with John Buccigross and Barry Melrose,” he told The Province in 2021. He was recalling his first foray into broadcasting alongside Buccigross on Melrose on ESPN2’s NHL 2Night, a step he took while he was still an active player. “All these years later, I’m back.”
AS AN ANALYST
Ferraro’s credibility is unquestioned. Ferraro also understands his role, maybe more than a lot of analysts in other sports. Ferraro doesn’t try to force things or try to show off his deep knowledge of the sport. His philosophy on the job is spot on.
“My role is to provide some ‘why’ as to what’s happening,” Ferraro said to the Hartford Courant back in May of this year. “Everybody’s got a television and they can see what’s happening, my thought is to try to use my experience from playing and from being around the game to explain why it happened. I love the game and I’ve been around it a long time, and I hope that comes across.”
Ferraro doesn’t have any hokey catch phrases, he just delivers the commentary straight without gimmick or flash. Whether or not fans of either team playing want to believe it, he has absolutely no rooting interest in a particular game. The length Ferraro goes to make sure that’s the case is interesting.
“I make it point to not really get to know many of the managers or the players on a personal level other than those I just do know,” he said to the Hartford Courant. “Because I don’t want it to cloud how I analyze a play. You always hear from people who think you’re biased one way or the other, but honestly, you’d have to go a long way to find somebody who cares less who wins than I do. My job is not to care.”
Hockey is fast-paced and many things can happen between his comments, depending on stoppages in play. He’s not jumping in and interrupting the flow of the game with nonsense. Others in his role have. Ferraro doesn’t spew endless mundane facts, like where a guy played his junior hockey, or how small a player’s town is. Ferraro picks his spots well and compliments the play-by-play announcer.
“I did get some advice early on, it’s not an accumulation of word count,” Ferraro told the Hartford Courant. “If you don’t have something to say where you can provide some context then there’s no need to say it. If the audience thinks I’m talking too much, then I probably think I’m talking too much.”
That’s a very refreshing take. Too often analysts and even play-by-play announcers, just say something to say it. The result is usually awkward. Ferraro understands the nature of his sport as well. If you make a comment that lasts too long on something that just happened, chances are pretty good that something else, maybe more important will happen next. I enjoy the fact that he understands it.
Ferraro is such a great breath of fresh air, compared to some that have done it in the past. His commentary is even handed and succinct. It’s bread from the experience of a long and successful NHL career and I think it means something to the viewer.
DID YOU KNOW?
Ferraro played for British Columbia in the 1976 Little League World Series. They finished with a 1-2 record.
On November 23, 2015, Ferraro became the first hockey broadcaster to call a game where his child also played in the same game. It happened with the Maple Leafs hosting the Bruins. Ferraro’s son Landon was playing for Boston. Ray let it slip at the end of an interview, telling his son ‘Don’t be shy, go get another goal.”
Ferraro remarried in 2004 to former U.S. women’s ice hockey team captain Cammi Granato, who also worked as a women’s hockey analyst during NBC’s coverage of the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics.
Andy Masur is a columnist for BSM and works for WGN Radio as an anchor and play-by-play announcer. He also teaches broadcasting at the Illinois Media School. During his career he has called games for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox. He can be found on Twitter @Andy_Masur1 or you can reach him by email at Andy@Andy-Masur.com.
