Bob Miller | |
---|---|
Bob Miller pictured in 2011
|
|
Born |
Robert James Miller October 12, 1938 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
Sports commentary career | |
Team(s) | Los Angeles Kings (1973–2017) |
Genre(s) | play-by-play (television) |
Sports | Ice hockey |
Robert James "Bob" Miller (born October 12, 1938) is an American sportscaster, best known as the play-by-play announcer for the Los Angeles Kings team of the National Hockey League on Fox Sports West/Prime Ticket. Miller held that post with the team from 1973 until his retirement in 2017. He was partnered with Jim Fox from 1990 to 2017.
Miller received his degree in communication studies from the University of Iowa. While there, he began his broadcasting career, covering the school's football and basketball games for campus station KRUI-FM.
After his graduation in 1960, Miller began working in television sports journalism in Wisconsin. He later would add announcing duties for the football and hockey teams at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
In 1972, Jiggs McDonald was the Kings' original play-by-play announcer, Kings owner Jack Kent Cooke, who was also the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, decided to hire long-time San Francisco Bay Area announcer Roy Storey.
When Storey left the team after one season, the Kings turned their attention back to Miller, who was then hired in 1973, and has been their play-by-play announcer ever since.
Due to the NHL's exclusive national broadcast contract with NBC that prevented local television announcers to call playoff games beyond the first round, Miller and broadcast partner Jim Fox were not allowed to call the Kings' Stanley Cup Finals games on television. But due to their overwhelming popularity among fans, Kings management had Miller and Fox record their call of the potential clinching games for later distribution.