Hockey-loving Steve Levy from ESPN grew up on Long Island . . . rooting for the Rangers
ESPN broadcaster Steve Levy on the set of "The Point: NHL Opening Night" on Sept. 29 in Bristol, Conn. Credit: ESPN Images/Gerald Leong
Growing up a puck’s throw from the Nassau Coliseum in Merrick, ESPN’s Steve Levy got to witness “the best hockey I’ve ever watched” when the Islanders won four consecutive Stanley Cups in the 1980s.
Only problem? Levy was a Rangers fan.
“It wasn't ideal,” Levy told Newsday in a telephone interview. “I can tell you that I was the only one wearing a Rangers jersey at [John F.] Kennedy High School. That's for sure. I will say this: The Islanders gave me the best hockey education I could have ever had. Those four consecutive cups were, in essence, my four years in high school. Those Islander teams, I would stack them against anyone, and that includes [Wayne] Gretzky and [Mark] Messier's Oilers.”
On Tuesday night, Levy will be in ESPN’s brand new Studio W for the network’s fourth annual “Frozen Frenzy.” All 32 NHL teams will be playing with three of the games airing on ESPN and a second show in the same studio on ESPN2 doing a whip-around format to look in on the other 13 games.
“Studio W is enormous,” Levy said. “We're very proud of it. Apparently, it has a lot of pixels, which I really don't understand. But it's going to be wild.”
It’ll also be Wild, as in the Minnesota Wild, who will face off against Winnipeg at 8:15 p.m. The games on Tuesday will have 15-minute staggered starts. Rangers-Lightning begins at 7:15 p.m. and Islanders-Canucks gets underway at 7:45 p.m. Those games will be on the MSG Networks as usual.
The ESPN tripleheader features the Devils at Detroit at 6, Colorado at Dallas at 8 and Boston at San Jose at 11.
Levy, 61, has covered just about every sport during his career, including a stint as the play-by-play guy on “Monday Night Football.” But hockey is his first, best love in the booth or studio.
“It always has been,” he said. “It was the first thing I really ever did, in addition to SportsCenter, when I came over. It was a big part of the reason I went to ESPN in the first place. My love for hockey, I think, afforded me a seat sort of at the adult table right away, because everybody wants to do the NFL and Major League Baseball and the NBA, and to a lesser extent there are fewer people who do hockey and do it well. I thought that gave me a bit of an advantage at an early point coming into ESPN. To be associated with the same property for all these years has really been a blessing.”
Also a blessing to Levy? The Rangers' unexpected hot start to the season before the injury suffered by goalie Igor Shesterkin on Friday night.
“I'm very surprised by the Rangers’ start, quite frankly,” said Levy, who works with Messier at ESPN. “At ESPN, it's no surprise, we need the Rangers to be good. We need the big market teams to be good. We need the original six teams to be good. Be nice if the Bruins and the Red Wings could cooperate. Be nice, with sitting next to Mess, if the Rangers would be good, and we'd get a Stanley Cup Final with Mess in the house. I've always thought about that. How amazing that would be?”
Probably not going to happen this year. But, hey, a Rangers fan from Long Island can dream, right? Even if it meant a trip on the LIRR to see your favorite team growing up.
“My folks were like, ‘Hey, we live 10 minutes from the Coliseum,’ ” Levy said. “I've always been a big-city guy. I couldn't wait to jump on the train. My mom would drop me off on one end. My dad would meet me on the other end and we'd go grab a hot dog and go to Gerry Cosby's and go to the Ranger game and then have to leave and miss the final minute so we could catch the train back home. My dad had to work early in the morning and all that. But it was always something about Madison Square Garden, always something about the big city, that I always loved. I've never minded being the underdog, either, so that never bothered me.”
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
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