St. Louis Blues Chris Kerber Recovers From Throat Surgery

ST. LOUIS - OCTOBER 12: General interior view of the scoreboard and ice at Scottrade Center during the NHL game between the Boston Bruins and the St. Louis Blues on October 12, 2006 in St. Louis, Missouri. The Blues beat the Bruins 3-2 in a shootout. (Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)
ST. LOUIS - OCTOBER 12: General interior view of the scoreboard and ice at Scottrade Center during the NHL game between the Boston Bruins and the St. Louis Blues on October 12, 2006 in St. Louis, Missouri. The Blues beat the Bruins 3-2 in a shootout. (Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)

The St. Louis Blues have some of the best broadcasters in the business. One of them had a slight health scare recently, but came out OK.

The hockey world just recently lost the best known American voice in the game when Doc Emerick retired. The St. Louis Blues were in danger of losing their main voice too.

Unknown to just about anyone except those close to him, Blues radio voice and Vice President of Broadcasting, Chris Kerber recently underwent a throat surgery. Apparently, he had developed a polyp on one of his vocal cords.

Kerber downplayed the situation in a video with his partner Joe Vitale, since the surgery was successful. However, there is always that small chance something could go wrong.

Now, according to Kerber, there was next to no chance of anything seriously wrong happening. His story was the worst-case scenario presented by the doctors was they could nick something and he could have a scratchy voice from then on. That is better than the worst case in many surgeries, but there is still always worry.

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2020 has not been kind to Blues broadcasters. Prior to the restart for the playoffs, the television broadcaster for the Blues, John Kelly, contracted covid-19.

He also successfully recovered from what ailed him, but it took a bit out of him too.

While the entire situation with Kerber was unknown to most fans, it was not something you could tell, but in hindsight makes sense. Kerber said he struggled to hit certain levels during the playoffs and his voice would often be shot after games.

This actually makes sense, because it felt like Kerber was not quite as enthusiastic as normal during many of the playoff games. Personally, I chalked it up to the difficulties of broadcasting off a monitor, but this explains a lot as well.

While Kerber took the right attitude of having to get it done and dealing with any consequences, I can’t say it wouldn’t scare me some. As an aspiring broadcaster myself, and lacking some of the natural vocal power Kerber has, the idea of not being able to call games any longer would be daunting.

Thankfully, he has recovered well and is ready to get back to it. Now, if we could just get this all figured out and get the games going, we’d be golden.