H oyea#0;*
his time around the ice. Goldberg, 32, is the man in
the broadcasting booth at Joe Louis Arena who an-
nounces the play-by-plays for the Detroit Red Wings
hockey games on Channel 50 and on PASS. He re-
placed Dave Strader, who went to ESPN last August.
Before coming to Detroit, Goldberg was based in
Chicago and worked for ESPN and the SportsChan-
nel, covering everything from sky surfing to Chicago
Bulls championship games.
Goldberg looks back on his childhood and chuckles.
"My parents lied. I was supposed to be 7 years old [for
the Teepee league]. We changed the year on my birth
certificate so I [could] start playing at the age of 5," he
confides.
Goldberg is the product of an intermarriage. When
Eli Ronald Goldman married Patricia Ross Farley, nei-
ther was overly concerned with their mixed-religion
background. He was Jewish and she was Catholic.
"You really can't get more to the opposite ends of the
spectrum than that," says Goldberg, who was named
Michael Francis after his mother's father.
"My parents have been married for 33 years," says
Goldberg. "I have a great respect for both of their re-
ligions. My brother and I see it as an opportunity to
join both cultures. My Jewish grandmother would say
that we benefit from the best of both worlds," he ex-
plains.
Goldberg's grandparents on his father's side came
to the United States from Russia and Poland. 'We cel-
OPEN MIKE page 86
Left:
Mike Goldberg: "Every game is a story within
itself."
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Red Wings
play-by-play
announcer Mike
Goldberg reveals
his love for
hockey, family
and Detroit.
MEGAN SWOYER
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
7
11111wenty-seven years ago, a little boy named
Michael moved, with his parents and younger
brother, from Cincinnati, Ohio, to his new
home in Southfield, Mich. The 5-year-old had
never seen a hockey stick. His father, a traveling
salesman for Revlon, never had given much thought
to the game of hockey. But once they settled in, lit-
tle Mikey and his family discovered that Detroiters
take hockey seriously.
It seemed the kids were always playing street
hockey or skating on nearby ponds long past the din-
ner hour. So his parents enrolled their son in a ju-
nior Teepee hockey league. He started to love hockey
... and he grew to be extremely competitive. When
Mike was 13, he lost his two front teeth on the ice in
a Bantam league and begged his mother not to re-
place them. He wanted to be like his toothless hero,
Philadelphia Flyer Bobby Clarke. By the time Mike
had entered college, he was good enough to play for
Miami of Ohio.
Today, Mike Goldberg continues to spend most of
PHOTO BY DANIEL LIPPITT
Bottom:
Former Wing Mickey Redmond and Mike
Goldberg announce 75 hockey games a year.