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Play-By-Play Commentator
Gary Thorne joined ABC Sports' College Football Broadcast team this season as a play-by-play commentator on ABC's regional telecast. He has also served as the lead announcer on ABC's NHL Hockey League coverage from 2000-2004, and since 2003 has broadcast college football and basketball with the network.
Currently serving as the play-by-play commentator for ESPN's "National Hockey Night" (since 1992) telecasts, Thorne calls select NHL games on ESPN2. He rejoined ESPN's Major League Baseball commentating team in 1996; from 1990 to 1993 he called two primary Major League Baseball games per week. In 1991 he called the network's Big Monday Big East NCAA basketball games. Appearing on ESPN first in July, 1988 for the inaugural Triple-A All-Star Game, Thorne served as the original host and moderator that year for "The Sports Reporters," the network's Sunday morning roundtable program.
Thorne broadcast New York Mets baseball on radio and television for 13 years. In 1997 he added play-by-play for CBS's NCAA Tournament games. He also worked speed skating during the 1998 Winter Olympics for CBS, covered canoeing, kayaking and rowing for NBC in Sydney and ice hockey in the Salt Lake Games. In 1989 he served as the voice of the Chicago White Sox on WFLD-TV and handled play-by-play on ABC's Thursday night Major League Baseball backup telecasts, as well as serving as an on-field reporter during World Series coverage. In hockey he has done play-by-play on SportsChannel America's National Hockey League telecasts (1988-92), and New Jersey Devils telecasts on SportsChannel New York (1987-92).
Thorne has broadcast seven world series, LCS and All star Games for MLB International Television. Prior to that he was the play-by-play commentator and director of broadcasting for the Maine Guides (1984), a Triple-A ball club which he co-owned from 1984-88. He also covered University of Maine hockey games for WBGW-AM and WABI-TV and radio from 1977-86.
A 1970 graduate of the University of Maine with a bachelor of science degree in business, Thorne finished University of Maine School of Law in 1973 and received a doctorate in law in 1976 from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is a former assistant district attorney in Bangor, Maine, and was admitted to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court in March 1977.