HOF Red Wings Public Address Announcer Budd Lynch Passes Away At 95

Red Wings PA announcer BUDD LYNCH, "a part of the Red Wings'  brand," passed away Tuesday at the age of 95, according to George Sipple of the DETROIT FREE PRESS. Lynch, the club's "longest-tenured employee, began working for the organization in 1949, hired by then-general manager JACK ADAMS to do play-by-play on radio and TV." He never left, and for the last 27 years "served as the team’s public-address announcer." He died yesterday morning "after a brief illness at a Detroit-area rehabilitation center." Others who worked with Lynch in the press box "remembered a cheerful man who had a passion for hockey." Red Wings Owner MIKE ILITCH in a statement said, "Hearing Budd's voice on the radio and over the public address at Joe Louis Arena was something that every Red Wings fan looked forward to and loved" (DETROIT FREE PRESS, 10/10).

STAPLE OF THE MOTOR CITY: In Detroit, Ted Kulfan notes Lynch had been the Red Wings' PA announcer since '85, "the same year he received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster." He was "inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2005 and received the Ty Tyson Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting issued by the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association" (DETROIT NEWS, 10/10). FS DETROIT's Art Regner writes Lynch's tenure with the Red Wings was "amazing." Regner: "Players come and go, but Budd Lynch was always there ... as a television and radio broadcaster, then as an announcer and later, for me, as a colleague and friend." Lynch's "laid back style -- letting the game come to him instead of creating some hysterical diatribe about something that wasn't really happening -- was his gift." Budd Lynch "said a lot by not saying too much" (FOXSPORTSDETROIT.com, 10/9).