Nick Nielsen is the new voice of the Prince Albert Raiders. (Submitted photo/Nick Nielsen)

By paNOW Staff

New Voice

Prince Albert welcomes new voice of ‘Hockey Town North’

Jul 11, 2024 | 2:00 PM

There’s an old saying, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

Nick Nielsen is about to become living proof of that when he takes on the position of play-by-play announcer for the Prince Albert Raiders of the Western Hockey League.

“There is nothing I enjoy more than getting to be on the call for a hockey game. It’s an absolute blast.”

Nielsen has been calling hockey games for about seven years. He started in the Big Six Hockey League in southeastern Saskatchewan around the Estevan area. He worked for a radio station while calling games for the Weyburn Red Wings of the SJHL and spent a year in Kindersley doing the same thing for the Klippers before returning to Weyburn.

“So I’ve spent the last five years in the SJHL and have got to call a lot of fun games and had a lot of really fun moments on the air,” Nielsen said. “Actually, the last two years, I believe I was probably the only person in Canada actually doing the in-house announcing for the games and calling play-by-play for home games at the same time.”

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Nielsen has spent the last 5 years calling games in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. (Submitted photo/Nick Nielsen)

Nielsen likens the game-call to the same adrenaline rush he received as an athlete in high school who played football and a bit of hockey, but excelled at wrestling.

“I’m not afraid to hold back when I’m excited, you know. If the guys do something great, you’re going to know about it and probably hear about it from the next room,” he said. “I’m definitely a bit of a ‘homer’, I’m not going to lie. You’re going to hear me cheering for the Raiders and it doesn’t matter if they start at 0 and 20 or 20 and 0, I’m going to be on their back the entire way because, at the end of the day, I’m doing this because I’m a fan of the team.”

Nielsen takes his inspiration from sportscasters like Chris Cuthbert from Hockey Night in Canada.

“I think he’s the gold standard for it, but I also liked listening to Rod Pedersen a lot when he was calling Roughrider football games and Michael ‘Doc’ Emerick from NBC. He would always have these turn of phrases you’ve never heard from anybody else, and yet you somehow knew exactly what he was talking about.”

When Nielsen isn’t calling games for the Prince Albert Raiders, he will be working as a journalist and anchor within the paNOW newsroom for Pattison Media. During his time off, he often helps out at the family farm in the Wilkie area but says he’s looking forward to the scenery in the north and taking in some of the local golf courses as well.

The Raiders kick off the 2024-25 campaign with their home opener on Friday, September 20^th against the Regina Pats.

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panews@pattisonmedia.com