Narrator of ‘Quest for the Stanley Cup’ knows what he’s talking about
Groton native Bill Camp has lent his voice to the program, which premieres on ESPN+ Friday, for the fifth consecutive year.
The man behind the resonant, familiar voice NHL fans hear narrating the annual journey to the Stanley Cup never gives it away on the job, but make no mistake: Bill Camp has a rooting interest in this thing.
Camp, an accomplished actor — he has been nominated for prime-time Emmy and Tony awards, has had a role in several prestige dramas (including “The Night Of’’), and appears in the anticipated upcoming film “The Joker’’ — returns this year as the narrator of “Quest for the Stanley Cup.’’
Camp, 55, begins his fifth season as the voice of the program, which covers the journey of the final eight teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs. He also has been the longtime voice of the “Road to the NHL Winter Classic’’ docuseries.
“Quest for the Stanley Cup,’’ a Sports Emmy-nominated all-access program, premieres exclusively on the streaming service ESPN+ Friday. New episodes will be available each Friday through the end of the Stanley Cup Final.
And the team Camp would like to see hoisting the Cup in the final scenes he will narrate?
“Let’s put it this way,’’ he said. “I still have my Bruins programs from the 1970 and ’71 seasons.’’
Camp, who grew up in Groton, is part of that enduring generation of Boston sports fans fortunate to have grown up on Bobby Orr and the big, bad Bruins. He was the first hockey player in a family of skiers, playing the sport through high school and then at the intramural level at the University of Vermont.
Though the years, as he was building his career in Los Angeles and New York, Camp got away from playing the game, though he never lost touch as a fan. A half-dozen or so years ago, after more than 20 years off the ice, he estimates, he got the urge to play again.
What brought him back?
“Watching the Bruins, and college hockey, which is just a great sport,’’ he said. “I was doing a play in New Haven, Conn., at the time. Quinnipiac and Yale had some really good teams, and it was so great. That just got my juices flowing.’’
Approaching 50 at the time, he wasn’t sure whether a return to the ice was foolhardy, if the comeback would be too late. He talked about joining a league in New York, but kept putting it off. Finally, his wife, actress Elizabeth Marvel, intervened.
“I kept talking about it and talking about it, kept saying I was going to get some gear, going to get some new skates,’’ he said. “One day we were up in Vermont visiting my family, and it was my birthday. So my wife drove me to one of those replay sports places, where you can buy used gear, and she said essentially, ‘Go get your stuff. That’s your birthday present.’ ’’
He began playing in a regular pickup game in the Forest Hills section of New York. He was asked whether the rust was easy to shake off.
“No, man,’’ he said, “it was a [expletive]. It was a bunch of young guys, some of them who had played junior hockey, from Canada or Long Island. One day one of them said to me, ‘Hey Bill, the’ — what is that thing called, not the c-pap machine — ‘defibrillator is on the wall over there,’ and he was serious.
“But what inspired me to work at it was when he said, ‘Hey Bill, it’s too bad the game has passed you by.’ ’’
Camp took the cutting comment as a challenge. Eventually, his skills sharpened up, his conditioning got better, and the defibrillator stayed on the wall. The players eventually gave him a jersey, a sign he was one of them. He now plays in a more formal league in Queens.
“I love the game,’’ he said. “I just love it. There’s nothing like it.’’
That carries over to his voice work on “Quest for the Stanley Cup,’’ which is produced by Ross Greenburg Productions in association with NHL Original Productions and is in its second season on ESPN+.
“It’s not even like work,’’ said Camp, who shares a voiceover agent with Liev Schreiber, who narrates the NFL Network’s “Hard Knocks’’ series.
“I think [the writers] know I understand the game and trust me with their copy,’’ he said. “I know it’s an ecstatic thing to play hockey, and how close-knit teams are, especially when they’re on a journey like this. It’s so fast and graceful, and yet it’s chaos.’’
Barr, who picked the Bruins to face the Blues in the Cup final when the playoffs began, said he has a fail-safe way of preparing for his role.
“Watch as many games as possible,’’ he said, “and pretend it’s research.’’
