1998: Guy Talks About a Broadcasting Career

Excerpted from "Broadcasting’s Best" by Bill Howard, 1997-98 Dallas Stars Official Game Program

Stars fans may not know that a semi-active color commentator plays for them. Guy Carbonneau has been a between-periods analyst for Montreal’s French broadcasts during two Stanley Cup finals (1987, 1997). Predicting a topic for his segment proved as hard as breaking the neutral zone trap, but being the well-rounded player that made him a Montreal legend, he has learned to adjust.

"You have to decide before the game what you want to talk about, but sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you planned," he said.
"[In the 1997 Cup Finals] I wanted to talk about how the Flyers needed Hextall to come up with really big saves if they expected to win the Cup. I was in the truck and I got two or three good saves that he made in the first period that I could talk about. And then 15 seconds before the end of the period, he gives up a goal from the blue line.

"It’s really hard to condense 20 minutes of play in one or two minutes. But once you get used to it, it’s pretty good."

From that experience, he is seriously entertaining thoughts of joining the broadcast booth full time once his playing days are over.

"I don’t mind talking about things and I was always on TV being Montreal’s captain for six years," he explained. "I’ve talked to people in Montreal and they have told me, as soon as I retire, to give them a call."