Longtime Gophers hockey broadcaster Frank Mazzocco announces retirement

Frank Mazzocco, who has served as play-by-play announcer or color analyst for Gophers men’s hockey broadcasts since the mid-1980s, announced Thursday that he is retiring from his role on the team’s radio broadcasts.

Mazzocco has teamed with play-by-play man Wally Shaver since the 2011-12 season on Gophers radio. Prior to that, he served as play-by-play voice of Gophers hockey for more than 20 years on Fox Sports North and its predecessor, Midwest Sports Channel.

“TV ended and radio began, and I just started having fun again,” said Mazzocco, 72. “I just had to stay with it. Wally and I were and still are getting along great. It’s nice to sit and do games the way we thought we needed to do.”

Mazzocco and Shaver first teamed on Gophers WCHA playoff broadcasts on KITN-TV during the 1985-86 season, the first with Doug Woog as Minnesota’s coach.

“The next year, Ch. 29 picked up a package,” Mazzocco said. “We did between 12 and 20 games for quite a few years on Ch. 29, and it sort of stuck.”

Shaver credits Mazzocco’s professionalism as something that stood out.

“He was always prepared,” Shaver said. “He’s got stats that go way back. He even does research in the summer and gets microfilm of some of the old newspaper stories from back in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s just to validate some stats. He’s got all kinds of spreadsheets that he brings with him, just in case you need something. … He knows the game so well, and the program.”

Pat Micheletti, the former Gophers great who shares the radio broadcast booth with Mazzocco and Shaver, sees Mazzocco’s versatility as a trait that set him apart.

“The way he works around a broadcast is really unique,” he said. “Not a lot of people can do it. When there’s three of us in the booth, he gave me the chance to expand on my knowledge of the game. Our rapport was really, really good. He set me up to make me look good.”

The transition from play-by-play announcer to color analyst wasn’t easy, Mazzocco said.

“It was a stretch,” he said. “I had a whole bunch of new things to learn. … I never played the game. Calling the game is one thing. Figuring out what’s going on on the ice and what should be going on on the ice is a whole other thing.”

Micheletti said he and Shaver occasionally razz Mazzocco on his meticulous ways.

“It was always fun to try to get him on something,” Micheletti said. “We could laugh about things. I don’t think there ever was an uncomfortable time in the broadcast booth with him.”

Former Gophers coach Don Lucia, now the commissioner of the CCHA, recalled the heyday of Mazzocco’s time with Woog as color analyst.

“When you think of Gopher hockey, you think of Frank and Doug, when Doug was doing the color. They were like Frick and Frack together,” Lucia said. “Sometimes, they’d get a little off-tangent and it would be comedy hour, and Frank would have to guide Doug back to the game.”

Said Gophers coach Bob Motzko, “That was really the advent of the new era of Gophers hockey. They had their own TV package. It was on every fish house up north, every bar you’d go in, every rink. It was Frank and Doug. … It hit a whole new level around the state and region. He and Doug and Wally are legends.’’

Mazzocco’s last game with the Gophers was their 2-1 loss to Michigan in the Big Ten tournament semifinals on March 16. He did not cover the Gophers in the NCAA Sioux Falls Regional so he could be with his wife, Deb, on their 50th anniversary.

When asked what he’ll miss most about the broadcasting role, Mazzocco responded: “Friday and Saturday night,” he said. “There’s nothing like having the on-air light go on because then you go. That’s it.”