St. Louis Blues Goalies Breathe Easy; Kelly Chase Leaves Broadcast Booth

For more than a decade Blues fans have been able to hear one of the best radio broadcast teams in the league. That will change in 2018-19.

St. Louis Blues goaltenders can breathe a little easier now. One of their arch nemesis, Kelly Chase will be leaving the broadcast booth to pursue other opportunities.

According to the official team website, Chase will join the organization as part of the business and community development team. Chase will also pursue a venture in real estate too.

I made the opening comment rather tongue-in-cheek, but there were times when Chaser could get a little annoying. He became known for picking on goaltenders, or at least openly calling them out on their mistakes – depending on your point of view.

He was more than welcome to his opinion. There is no reason a broadcaster cannot call it as they see it.

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The reason his opinion of goaltenders became tiresome is it seemed to border on favoritism and bias. Jake Allen and Jaroslav Halak suffered the wrath of Chaser more than others.

Detractors of those two will say there is a reason for that, and that cannot be denied completely. However, when you hammer home every single, tiny mistake of those two, while letting the mistakes of guys like Brian Elliott or Carter Hutton slide or rest on the defenders, it gets old. Call out mistakes if you will, but keep it even across the board.

Regardless of my own opinion on that, Chase will be missed in the broadcast booth. He formed one of the best radio partnerships in the league with Chris Kerber and will not be easily replaced.

The two broadcasters were together for 18 straight seasons, after Chase retired from playing an 11-year NHL career. Chase went right into NHL broadcasting. While he was green himself, he helped Kerber transition to the big time after broadcasting minor league hockey.

"“I learned a lot about the NHL in a hurry from ‘Chaser,'” said Kerber, who will remain the play-by-play voice of the Blues on KMOX. “I had just come up from the minor leagues, and he took me under his wing. He introduced me to people, helped me build relationships with players and that was a huge start to the success we’ve had together.”"

Chase and Kerber made some of the most mundane or disappointing games entertaining. They both said they never intentionally tried to be funny on air, but they often injected humor into their broadcast.

As with any comedic aspect, sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not, but you could tell they liked working together. That is not the case with all broadcasters as some of them seem to go through the motions and probably don’t speak in between games. You could just imagine Kerber and Chase going out for a drink after the game.

Again, the goaltender bashing got a little old, but that’s a personal opinion as a goaltender and a broadcaster. It just rubbed the wrong nerve for a forward to be so critical of the position he helped out the least. That said, Chase brought a candidness and even keel, that made listening enjoyable.

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Most times, if he got on an official or was critical of a player, it was for a reason. Chase was not going to make a statement simply for the sake of it or shock.

He will be missed. The next color broadcaster will have large shoes to fill. Best of luck to them and best of luck to Chaser in his next ventures.

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