'Change of pace' has Forslund rejuvenated, working to build tradition in Seattle

By Ryan Bisesi, WRAL multiplatform producer

Seattle — Before the Carolina Hurricanes became a household name and hockey fans knew PNC Arena as a formidable place, veteran play-by-play broadcaster John Forslund brought the team a semblance of respectability. Always present on the TV and a staple at community outreach events, Forslund was a rarity in pro sports, a familiar face who stayed in one place for a long time and a name synonymous with an organization.

Two years ago, he thought he’d be a lifer in Raleigh. Last year, he packed up his life and moved to the Pacific northwest to start a new chapter with the Seattle Kraken with Hurricanes legend Ron Francis at the controls.

Still in their inaugural season, the Kraken are fighting the same battles the Hurricanes did in the late 1990s – finding their place in the NHL and solidifying a reputation in a city with a bustling sports scene. Once again, Forslund is there to help build a tradition while maintaining his status by occasionally calling nationally broadcast games.

The two worlds will collide on March 6, when he returns to PNC Arena to call a game as an opposing announcer, something that would have seemed impossible not long ago. Forslund hasn’t been at PNC Arena for an NHL game since 2020, the same year contract talks broke down, leaving him temporarily without a job.

In a recent conversation with WRAL Sports, Forslund talked about fighting off initial feelings of bitterness and moving on to a new chapter in his professional life, along with the renewed energy he’s enjoying from the change of scenery.

Scroll to read a condensed Q&A with Forslund or watch the complete interview in the video above.

WRAL: What was it like dealing with this career curve ball?

JF: It wasn’t easy, and I had a hard time with it at first. And it lasted a while.

Last season, I worked independently for NBC without a team until I was presented with a couple of opportunities, and this one here was the opportunity of a lifetime and a career.

I thank God that I’ve been able to get this chance at this stage of my career. There’s no guarantees, as you know, in this business. There’s no guarantees that, number one, you’ll be in a place forever, which I kind of thought that was a possibility. When that didn’t happen, then there’s always that thought of will you ever land another job? And even though people tell you, ‘hey, you’re going to be just fine.’ That’s a nice thing to say, but the realistic part of that doesn’t necessarily always happen. So you can’t take it for granted and I didn’t.

Now that time has marched on and I’m here and I feel like this is a second home and a new beginning and a new chapter in my professional life. I’m 100 percent into what we’re doing here with the Seattle Kraken. I’m happy to still be involved with the NHL in some national stuff, which is good and I’ve weened myself out of there and I need to. I have to. Because you have to look forward, you can’t look back. But it’s hard, it’s hard to not look back at something two-plus decades that you were a part of. We raised our family there and we have a lot of friends and our life is there. Not only do you lose your position but you kind of lose your life in a way.

Life, as you say, brings you twists and turns. You have to navigate them. You have to turn them into a positive and I think we have.

WRAL: You’ve carried some of your trademark phrases like ‘hey, hey, whadda say’ and ‘that’s hockey, baby!’ to Seattle. Was that ever in question?

JF: Oh yeah. They’re in my briefcase. I took them with me. The ‘hey, hey, whadda say’ is very personal. It’s a tribute to my late father, who passed away at the beginning of my career when I was 22 in 1985. That’s a link between the two of us. I’ve used that ever since my minor league days. The other ones organically came out over time. Some of them work no matter where you are. Some of them are connected to the team.

The one that I’ve taken here is ‘That’s Kraken hockey.’ I’ve kind of tagged our wins with that. I’ve tagged my Twitter feed with that. Because it’s not just about the game. It’s about community involvement and things of that nature, which is probably something that most people know, from my career there in Raleigh, that the community was very much a part of what I like to do.

WRAL: What are your thoughts on the league's new TV deal that began with this season?

JF: I thought we did an excellent job at NBC. Of course, I’m biased there. But even before I became more prominent with them, I thought they were doing a great job with the product. Had it for a long time, life changes though.

All of these entities are looking at the NFL first and what they were going to do. Once NBC went all in to retain Sunday Night Football and Super Bowls and so on and billions of dollars were allocated to that, everybody tried to figure out what they were going to do with the NHL. The NHL, coming off the pandemic, was in desperate need to take the rights fee, annually, to a high level. They were hoping to get it even higher than it is. When you get to over $600 million as opposed to $200 million between ESPN and Turner, that’s a home run for the owners. In a gate-driven league, where ticket revenues are really the sole power behind every franchise, television money is not as large as it is with other sports. You’ve got to grab as much as possible.

I think they’ve done a nice job. I think they’re trying to make it a little bit different. I’m happy to have a small role right now in what we’re doing. I hope to get back a little more into it as time marches on. I had to make a decision. I think if NBC had retained the rights, I’d probably be in a more prominent role than I am now, but I’m also happy it worked out this way because I needed to get every ounce of my energy involved in this. We’re not only starting a new franchise. We’re a new network. They’re relying on me for a lot of insight in terms of how we do the games, how the games are produced, I have a brand-new partner that I’m breaking in, J.T. Brown, who’s done a remarkable job in a short period of time coming off his playing career. I’m glad all my energy is here.

WRAL: You were calling games with Hurricanes analyst Tripp Tracy for more than two decades and now that you’re with another team, required to develop chemistry with a new analyst. What’s that process been like?

JF: It’s been great. I told him right from the beginning, the first thing we have to do is forge a friendship. That’s easy to say and hard to do. I wasn’t sure, based on our age difference, how that would work out. We didn’t know each other. I had covered him, but I really didn’t know J.T. at all. We’ve become really good friends. He’s a hard worker. He’s got natural talent. And I see us developing the same way Tripp and I did over a number of years. We became like brothers there.

I told Tripp many, many years ago, because he was kind of in a similar spot when he was new. He was trying to be somebody else other than himself. I told him just be yourself. And I told J.T. the same thing. You be you and I’ll be me and we’ll go places. That’s what happened with Tripp and I and I think that’s happening here, too.

I’m comfortable because I’m allowed to be me. They brought me in here as this veteran broadcaster with a new team, a brand new partner in his first year doing this. Sometimes that transition is not easy for ex-players, but he has really applied himself.

WRAL: Had you spent much time in Seattle before getting this position?

JF: No, I’d never been here and took the job sight unseen because of the pandemic.

In the summer of ’20, there were two openings in the league. There was the new team in Seattle and there was the Tampa Bay Lightning. In November of ’20, Tampa Bay approached me with an offer that, to me, at the time wasn’t right. It was going to cut into my national work a little bit.

I had this conversation going with Seattle. They were great with me from the first day. The first day that it broke down in Carolina, when they decided that it wasn’t going to work, Ron Francis called me to see how I was. It had nothing to do with me getting the job. He wanted to know how the family was, how I was doing, it was really great to hear from him. He said ‘I’m going to turn you on to (Kraken CEO) Tod Leiweke to talk to him.'

From that day forward, I felt like part of their family. I missed being part of a team. I never realized how much I enjoyed being a team broadcaster. Being part of a team and a direct connection with the fan base as an announcer? That’s a tremendous reward. I missed it. It was like a vacancy in my life. I didn’t even realize it had left because I was just marching on. Now that I have it back again, I can connect with the fans of the Seattle Kraken, I realize how lucky I was there for a number of years and I’ve got it back again.

WRAL: The Hurricanes recently announced plans for their rescheduled outdoor game to happen in 2023 at Carter-Finley Stadium. Is that something you’d like to be here for?

JF: I’d love to be there for it. I’d love to work it if it’s in the cards.

I’d like to come back under those circumstances. It was always part of the dream there, that we would get a national game in that market and showcase everything that the Hurricanes are about. Good for them. I’m glad it finally happened. I hope that the weather cooperates. I worry that there’s always a chance for rain.

I saw the visual they put out with all the snow at Carter-Finley. Now if it snows as much as the promo, the game will never happen. That’s one thing. Number two, the realism there is rain and ice. That’s the one thing, if they get a nice, cool, 40-, 35-degree day with some sun, it’s going to be spectacular, especially when the sun goes down. It’s going to be a football environment with tailgating and a celebration of that franchise.

WRAL: Did you feel the need to reinvent yourself any going to a new team in a new city in another market?

JF: Not at all. Other than reinvigorating myself, that’s what happened here. I really feel terrific, luckily. My health is good, thank God. But I have energy again.

That situation at the end took a lot out of me. I had energy doing national games, but when you do national games, you have nothing vested in it, other than your career and who you’re working for. You want to do a good job and make sure you’re prepared on both sides and 50/50 the broadcast, but when you’re completely invested for the franchise and they treat you with the amount of respect the Kraken have treated me with, it’s absolutely invigorating. That’s the best word to describe it.

WRAL: The Kraken come to Raleigh in a few weeks. Is calling that game something you’ve thought much about?

JF: To be honest, I have. I’m uneasy about it. I’m excited to get back there and see a game. I was in the building over the All-Star break. I came home and my daughter performed at the Norte Dame/NC State basketball game. I was in the building and I’m happy that’s the first time I came back into that building since February of 2020. I’m glad that was kind of the baptism and now when I come back to work, I don’t walk in for the first time.

So I’m going to have a lot of emotion. I don’t know how I’m going to feel that day. I know I have a job to do. That will take over and I’ll approach it that way. It’ll be good to get back and see my family. It’s unfortunate it’s a back-to-back. We’re in Washington the night before so we won’t have an opportunity to get in there, have an off night, see my family first and foremost for some real time, maybe some extended friends and so on, that’s not going to be the case. I’ll probably get home that night, in the morning, and then have to go back to work. Then we move on, we go to Toronto from Raleigh. It’s kind of a quick hit in-and-out. Maybe that’s for the best.

WRAL: What do you miss most about North Carolina?

JF: What I miss most is my family. Yes, the weather can be glorious. It can be a little bit more mild than it is here. Especially some days in the winter time when it rains for consecutive days. But that part of it hasn’t gotten to me. I’ve really enjoyed where I live. I live on Mercer Island, right across from downtown Seattle, so water surrounds me. Just being on the water, whether it’s cloudy or not, there’s a mystique for me. I love the water and I think that gets me through those dark days of winter. We’re starting to get into our spring now, which is good.

The hard part for us, my family, is that we’re bicoastal right now. My daughter’s a senior in high school at Apex Friendship, and we’re getting her through her last year. We didn’t want to move her, obviously. Our entire lives are there. My wife, Natalie, is there. She’s in charge of all of that, and I’m trying to stay in charge of our professional life out here. It’s difficult. I don’t want to say it’s a drawback or a negative because I don’t view it that way. It’s just a challenge to navigate through. That’s what we’re doing right now because we were in Raleigh for so long, we didn’t see this one coming. We didn’t see this change of pace.

I’m very happy that it did. I’ve moved on. Everything’s great professionally. We’re doing well as a family and we’re getting through this, but that’s the one thing that I really miss.

I want to thank the fans. I’ve said it many times. I’ve tried to get it through in many articles that have been written. Fans bring energy to me and that’s what I have here now and that’s why I feel invigorated in terms of what I’m doing. The media have been respectful of me. I still have great relationships with everybody there. I’ll never forget it.

But life takes a turn and where do you go? You go forward. I’m not looking back at it. I look back at it with fond memories. I’ve gotten beyond some of the other feelings I had at first. Right now, the most important thing is I’d like to leave it at that. I’d like to thank all of those caniacs out there for giving me the support and the energy to bring it every single game. I hope I did. And I hope I made a difference in the community over time too. Because that’s a very important part of what I was all about there.

I tried to make sure I did my part to not only promote the team but also be one with the community there, which is what we’re doing here in Seattle. That’s why this situation is so exciting for me, because we have a strong community commitment here. It’s far beyond whatever happens on the ice. Our messaging and what we stand for and who we reach in and around the community is vitally important to us.