Huskies play-by-play announcer does it for the love of the game

Duluth native Brian Prudhomme has loved sports since an early age.

He said he knew his dad loved sports. “I would always ask, ‘Who’s playing? Who’s winning? Oh, that’s who I’m cheering for.’ Then something happened where I kept following sports and then my dad would come to me

for information and

statistics.”

As a child, Prudhomme’s parents often would find him making commentaries about a hockey video game or acting out a game with his GI Joe and He-Man action figures so he could provide the play-by-play.

Now, the Duluth East and University of Wisconsin Superior grad is working for the Duluth Huskies as its play-by-play announcer for online game broadcasts.

But the journey to being the play-by-play announcer was not exactly along the most direct route.

After graduating East in 1997, Prudhomme went to Winona and had an opportunity to jump in and work the football, basketball and baseball games.

“It was a golden spoon of opportunity,” he said. “I liked the broadcasts, but there wasn’t much else about Winona that I liked.”

This brought Prudhomme back to the Northland to finish his degree

at UWS, and while there he got his foot in the

media door working as a production assistant at Channel 6.

“The Huskies kind of waited for me,” Prudhomme said. “Craig Smith had been asking me to do games since I was part-time at Channel 6.”

Prudhomme was about to take the job when Channel 6 provided him a full-time job opportunity.

In 2006, he left Channel 6 and also thought he was leaving his media career behind him.

“I vowed that I would not go back into the media,” Prudhomme said. “I didn’t need media anymore.”

In the summer of 2010, the Huskies once again approached Prudhomme and told him that there was a job for him if he would take it. The Huskies no longer had the need for a play-by-play announcer for each and every game, just home games. They also told him they needed someone who would do Internet TV broadcasts, not radio broadcasts.

After deliberation and the realization that maybe he missed the media part of him, Prudhomme took the Huskies up on their offer and has been doing it ever since.

“I’ll keep doing it because I love the game,” Prudhomme said of his play-by-play career.

Doing play-by-play for an online TV broadcast is a little different from other jobs Prudhomme has had. He doesn’t have a monitor to look at, but he is sometimes able to describe something going on so that the photographers can show it to the viewers.

One thing that isn’t different is the fact that he still reacts to the action and narrates what is going on around him.

Will his play-by-play announcing end with the Huskies? Who knows?

“You never know who could hear one of your broadcasts,” Prudhomme said.

As the announcer, Prudhomme is at each and every home game and is often disheartened by the fan support in the Northland.

“I wish somebody would just give them the benefit of the doubt and just come out and see a game,” he said.

A Huskies game is an inexpensive way to entertain a group of friends or a family,” Prudhomme said.

The Huskies’ next home game is July 15 at 5:05 p.m.

Duluthian Sarah Packingham writes about sports for the Budgeteer. Contact her at sarah.packingham@gmail.com.

Tags: budge opinion, budge sports, budgeteer