With about five minutes to go in the Ducks' Stanley Cup-clinching victory Wednesday night, two fans in front of the NBC studio set at Honda Center held up a large hand-made sign with a circle and a slash across pictures of Don Cherry and Brett Hull. And Hull's mouth had "Duck" tape across it.
One of the fans, Biff Malibu, on Thursday e-mailed a picture of the sign with this comment: "Mr. Hull, I know Johnny Miller, and you're no Johnny Miller, sir."
That's in reference to Hull attempting to be as open and honest as the NBC golf commentator, who is known for saying whatever pops into his head.
Miller -- who will be in the spotlight next week at the U.S. Open, which ESPN and NBC will televise -- provides insight into his announcing style in a half-hour Golf Channel special that premieres Tuesday at 6 p.m. The show is appropriately titled "Johnny Miller: Open and Honest."
In a taped interview with the Golf Channel's Rich Lerner, Miller says, "I absolutely have no clue I am on the air. Sometimes I have to remind myself, 'Don't say that!' ... The perfect announcing syndrome for me is that I get so interested in what's going on that I don't even know I'm announcing. That's probably why I'm as candid as I am because in my mind I'm not even on the air. I'm just talking to you."
Of criticism that he doesn't spend time talking with the golfers he is commenting about, Miller said, "The way I announce I'm not going to be real chummy. The gallery loves my announcing. The people at home like my announcing because they are getting the real truth."
Miller admits that in his 16 years of announcing there were probably five things he regrets. One was saying, "Craig Parry's swing would make Ben Hogan puke." Says Miller in the interview, "I could have said, 'It would have made his stomach upset.' "
CBS this week sent out a news release citing Sports Business Journal and Sports Illustrated polls that asked readers whom they preferred, Miller or CBS' Nick Faldo. Since it came from CBS, this was no surprise: Faldo got 72% of the votes in one poll and 82% in the other.
Where he is now
From Jan. 17, 1995, until the summer of 2002, Peter Kessler was Mr. Golf Channel. Known as "the voice of golf," he was the host of numerous shows on the upstart channel and its most visible face.
