Barry Was A Beauty.
It wasn’t hard to come up with a title for this piece.
I had the pleasure of a chance encounter with Barry Melrose ten years ago. Barry was one of my heroes, he was on the Mt. Rushmore of “beauties” who worked in the sports business, and there weren’t many of them: see Feherty . . .golf. see Barkley . . .basketball. see Madden . . .football.
Barry Melrose was a color guy in the increasingly play-by-play world of sports. More accurately, Barry was a colorful guy. He had the suits that looked like they were pulled straight from Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon’s closets at UNLV. He had the twinkle in the eye, the generous laugh—and, sweet Jesus, he had the mullet.
Every morning when I get out of the shower, I slick my hair back. I probably shouldn’t, it’s not the most flattering for the hairline or any spots that might be thinning. But there’s an entire generation of men who started their days this way. Think Brylcreem, Aqua Velva, Brut by Fabergé, and probably some male jewelry. Barry was this type of guy, a Mohican. A larger-than-life character. A they-don’t-make-them-like-they-used-to-guy.
If you’re reading this, you probably already know Barry Melrose is awesome, so I’ll get to my story. About 10 years ago someone from ESPN reached out to me and said that they were planning to come to the Boy’s Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament, and they wanted to do a feature on the All Hockey Hair Team. But there was a catch. They were only going to do the visit if I agreed to reveal myself as the creator of the hair videos.
Truth is, even back then, it was the world’s worst kept secret that I was making the Hockey Hair Videos. But I had never officially acknowledged it. In a stroke of rare brilliance, I said, “I’ll do it, but can I pick who pulls the mask off?” ESPN asked who I wanted to do the reveal, and I didn’t hesitate, “Barry Melrose.”
Much to my surprise, they agreed to it, and I officially had a date with one of my heroes, Barry Melrose. Before the ESPN team landed in Minnesota, or Minneflowta as they would coin it, I did make one more additional request. I asked one of the ESPN producers if Barry would be willing to hang out at my house for a bit after we made the video to have some drinks and smoke some cigars with my brothers and a close buddy. ESPN said they would ask Barry. About a week later the producer called me back and said, “Barry said yes, as long as they’re good cigars.” Legend.
As it would turn out, Barry showed up a few hours early for the E:60 Hockey Hair Team shoot at my home in White Bear Lake. My wife made a panicked call to me at the office in Minneapolis, “You need to get home, now. Barry Melrose is sitting in our kitchen eating sandwiches.”
By the time I made the commute home to White Bear Lake, Barry had sampled most of the tin foil wrapped sandwiches my wife had in the oven. He then joined my family as we selected that year’s All Hockey Hair Team together in my living room. Barry just sat in the chair next to me laughing as he watched the footage of all the kids skating up to the blueline. He had a bunch of one-liners, most of which we couldn’t use (“you’d think twice about taking a quarter from that kid!”). It was seamless, it was fun, it was Barry.
After we got done making the video, Barry was a man of his word and joined us on my porch for cigars and some drinks. Barry ended up bringing his own cigars. He drank red wine; we had beers and he told stories and made us all laugh. For one night, Barry made my porch in White Bear Lake feel like a hot-stove session in an NHL locker-room.
They always say you’re not supposed to meet your heroes, because they’ll only let you down. Whoever said that never met Barry Melrose, because he was the genuine article. As cool as you thought he was, he was an even better dude.
For the next couple years, every time the new hockey hair video would come out Barry would call me from Florida. I remember he was so happy the one year I had selected a girl as #1. He thought that was so cool, and good for the sport. Every time he made that call it shocked me. My wife and I would be driving around in our car someplace, and the phone would light up, and it would be Barry Melrose giving me an attaboy on the latest hockey hair video. A kind gesture he certainly had no obligation to do.
I kept in touch intermittently with Barry over the years. When his surprise Parkinson’s diagnosis hit the news, we connected because I wanted to do a content series called, “Barry Isn’t Dead” where he’d go to bucket-list hockey experiences and document the occasion like only Barry could. At the time Barry explained to me that he was doing okay, he just couldn’t travel and the Parkinson’s had made it hard for him to be live on camera. I know Barry would laugh today, thinking of that “Barry Isn’t Dead” pitch as he looks down on us from hockey heaven. I believe when we chatted, he said someone was already working on a Barry documentary. I truly hope that’s the case, because we all could use a little more Barry Melrose in our lives.
Hockey will miss you, Barry. We will miss you, Barry. Thanks for always being you.
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