Rick Jeanneret has called Sabres games for 51 seasons. ©2022, Dan Hickling

Sabres to honor Rick Jeanneret with banner in KeyBank Center rafters

Legendary play-by-play man Rick Jeanneret will become the 10th member of the Buffalo Sabres organization to be honored with a banner in the KeyBank Center rafters.

The Sabres this afternoon announced Jeanneret, who’s in his 51st and final season calling games, will have a banner bearing his name raised before the April 1 game against the Nashville Predators.

As part of what the team has named “RJ Night,” tributes will also be given and the first 10,000 fans to enter the rink will receive a replica banner.

Jeanneret’s popular calls such as “May Day,” “La La La La LaFontaine” and “Now do you believe?” have made him a Buffalo icon.

The NHL’s longest-tenured announcer has been honored by the Hockey Hall of Fame, having been awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award in 2012. He was inducted into the Sabres Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.

Jeanneret, 79, is calling 20 home games this season.

Banners honoring players Gilbert Perreault, Rick Martin, Rene Robert, Tim Horton, Danny Gare, Pat LaFontaine and Dominik Hasek and team founders and first owners Seymour and Northrup Knox currently hang in the rafters.

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