The longtime ESPN NHL analyst Barry Melrose, who for years was one of the most prominent NHL analysts in the United States, has died at 70. The news was reported by ESPN Wednesday night, citing Melrose’s longtime on-air partner Steve Levy.
Melrose was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2023 and had to retire from ESPN. He had spent nearly three decades with the network, save for a brief stint as coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and was the face of its hockey coverage for most of that time.
After ESPN gave up its NHL rights package in 2005, Melrose stayed on as the network’s only NHL analyst. Even as NHL coverage virtually disappeared from ESPN, Melrose gained greater prominence at the network, appearing almost nightly on “SportsCenter” during the Stanley Cup Playoffs and annually — alongside Levy — on the road at the Stanley Cup Final. For the majority of sports fans who may have watched an occasional NHL game, if any at all, Melrose was the league’s most prominent ambassador on American television.
Once ESPN regained NHL rights in 2021, he took a less prominent role as the network had a full roster of NHL personnel.
Melrose also worked for NHL Network during his broadcasting career, and as a head coach in the NHL was part of the Wayne Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings team that made it to the 1993 Stanley Cup Final.
In an interview with this site back in 2010, Melrose was asked why he continued to remain with ESPN even after the network lost the NHL. “Number one, I love it here,” he said then. “I love the people here. I’ve been here a long time. I think I’m seen more in my less time on ESPN than if I was on the other networks. Like I said, when you’re doing ‘SportsCenter’ every day, and you’re doing [ESPNews] every day, and you’re doing [ESPN].com every day, and you’re doing all the other things we do here — I just did ‘First Take’ this morning — I think those are still the most watched sports shows in the United States by far.
I just think this is the greatest sports company in the world, and I’m always hoping against hope that we do get hockey back. Then it would be the perfect existence for me.”
ESPN and the NHL both issued statements in tribute to Melrose Tuesday night. ESPN referred to him as a “one of the most distinctive and trusted voices in hockey” and a “foundational part of ESPN’s hockey coverage.” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Melrose “cut an unmistakable figure whenever you were fortunate enough to run into him at a rink or catch him on your television screen,” adding that he “never failed to boost your love of the game of hockey.”
Levy, as associated with Melrose as anyone, described his longtime partner as a “man of the people, a family man, a part of my family.” Levy: “Tonight I’ll toast to the kid from Kelvington who made it big but never forgot his roots. Now he can drink all the Bud Lights, smoke all the cigars and play all the rounds of golf he wants to. Barry Melrose was the best of us.”
Melrose is just the latest longtime ESPN broadcaster to pass away in recent years. Bill Walton passed in May of 2024 at 71 and Chris Mortensen in March of that year at 72. John Clayton died in March of 2022 at 67. Going back further, longtime ESPN NHL host John Saunders passed at 61 in 2016, and “SportsCenter” anchor Stuart Scott died at just 49 in 2015. There was a period of time, seemingly not so long ago, in which a viewer could see at least one of those broadcasters on ESPN every single night of the week.
