Courtesy the Democrat and Chronicle

(October 11, 2010) He has broadcast high school football in 80-below windchill from the top of a school bus in Laramie, N.D. A school bus with an arced roof.

Somehow Don Stevens and his card table didn't blow off. Somehow, he didn't freeze to death.

"I was wearing about everything I owned," he said.

He has called play-by-play of Triple-A baseball in Phoenix when the temperature was 122 degrees at game time. It was a night game. "You could see the heat radiating off the walls of the press box," Stevens recalls.

After describing to radio listeners every ace, lob and forehand winner in a World TeamTennis match in Boston, Stevens and everyone else involved with the teams went to Martina Navratilova's apartment for pizza.

Don Stevens has seen a lot in a 41-year broadcasting career: High school football, basketball and baseball; junior hockey; college hockey; Triple-A baseball; professional tennis; Rochester Americans hockey.

Lots of Amerks hockey.

On Saturday afternoon, Stevens began his 25th season as the radio — and television — voice of the Amerks. That's a quarter-century of telling Amerks fans about every detail of 80 American Hockey League games a year (even more when there are playoffs). A quarter-century of yelling "He scorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrres!" A quarter-century of "Oh, no," "Oh, man," and "Whata save."

Stevens, 62, arrived in Rochester in the summer of 1986. He never left.

"I remember I took the job and my wife saying, 'Well how long are we going to be there?' and I said, 'Two years, max.'"

Maybe he meant two decades? Or three?

That's because the NHL job he strived for never materialized. There was always someone who knew somebody, someone with an in, someone with a more unique style.

Amerks fans are mighty glad he has stayed.

"The fact he didn't get an NHL job, that's their loss and our gain," said Ted Cichanowicz of Henrietta, who has been following his beloved Amerks since 1960. "You really can see the game through his eyes."

And to think that, when growing up and then when considering college, broadcasting was never on the list of things Stevens wanted to do.

When he finished high school, he wasn't sure what path he would take. He did, however, know what he didn't want to do. Or couldn't do.

He wasn't going to teach, medical school was never a consideration, and corporate research and development wasn't exactly his thing.

His family had farmed back home in rural Alberta, up until the time Don was 6 or 7, and he knew grain and cattle weren't for him.

So by going to community college in Denver, he figured he'd find something he liked. He was right, too. Cards. He liked cards. "During final exams I was in the student union playing hearts," he said.

So much for college.

"I lasted one semester," Stevens recalls. "My mother said, 'We're not sending you there anymore'"

So what then? Mom had that all figured out.

"She said, 'Well, you like to talk, maybe you should work for a radio station,'" Stevens said.

And off on a mission Doris Inkin went. First she phoned a local radio station and asked what it took to get on the air. She was told about Brown Institute, a broadcast school in Mendota Heights, Minn. She then phoned Brown and asked what it took to get in. She was told to send a tape to the school and the educators would evaluate whether the voice had broadcast potential.

"I think I read an article from the newspaper and that's what she sent to them," Steven said. "Of course they said, 'Oh, you have the greatest voice we've ever heard.' They wanted students."

They also knew voices. A 41-year broadcast career is proof that mother — and the Brown Institute instructors — knew best.

Stevens is the dean of AHL broadcasters. Bob Crawford of the Hartford Wolf Pack is entering his 23rd AHL season, though he has called four cities home (Glens Falls, Providence, Binghamton and, for the past 14 years, Hartford).

Stevens has called right around 2,125 Amerk games.

He has missed eight or nine for personal reasons (daughter Shawna's basketball playoffs, family emergencies, etc.). His previous duties as the voice of Rochester Rhinos soccer also caused him to miss some Amerks games.

"He's not just one of the best, he's probably the best," said AHL president Dave Andrews. "He has managed to keep his passion for the game forever and ever and ever.

"To me, he's just one of the great personalities in the American Hockey League."

Calling AHL games has taken Stevens to 19 states, nine Canadian provinces and a spot in the Amerks Hall of Fame. He has logged hundreds of thousands of miles in a bus seat. "When I'm asked to speak at schools, I tell them the two most important things you need: an ability to type and a good bus pillow," he said.

To call games, Stevens has lugged his radio equipment and paperwork up several flights of stairs or into the rafters of some of the league's old buildings. But if he ever thought those AHL venues were antiquated, he needed only think back to his childhood to remember what primitive was really like.

Growing up on the farm in Fabian, Alberta, not far from his birthplace of Wainwright, there were no luxuries. They didn't have indoor plumbing. His mother would heat water on the stoves for baths.

When Don was "6 or 7," the family moved to Vancouver. "My mother thought it would be best for us for schooling if we went to the big city, and she finally convinced my father to move," he said.

At age 12, they moved to Denver. That's also the first time Don saw television.

Now, he's on TV 40 times a year, describing the action for viewers of Amerks home games.

"He always makes the game exciting," said Rich Funke, the news anchor (and former sports anchor) at WHEC-TV (Channel 10). "A lot goes into being a hockey broadcaster and I've never seen anyone more prepared than Don."

He didn't start doing hockey, though. He didn't even start in sports. His first job was at KRGI in Grand Island, Neb. He was hired in 1969 after finishing the 12-month education program at Brown Institute in 10 months.

He was king of titles at KRGI. Disc jockey, sports director, assistant news director and community services director. On the side he broadcast high school sports.

And he was given his new name. "You never used your real name on the air in those days," he said. Except that's one thing they didn't teach him at Brown. The station manager asked him for his middle name. "It's Steven," he recalls. "OK, you're Don Stevens."

Welcome to the Nebraska airwaves, and the life of a U.S. citizen. To be a licensed radio engineer in 1969, citizenship was required.

For the next 17 years, Stevens criss-crossed the Midwest and the West.

Don Drysdale once joined him in the broadcast booth. So, too, did Billie Jean King. And comedian Milton Berle. "He said he always wanted to do baseball," Stevens recalled. "The first pitch he called he said, 'Low and outside, that's Berle one.'"

In the summer of 1986, Stevens got a call from the Amerks. They wanted him to call their games.

No listener has ever wondered who he worked for, either.

"I'm paid by the team and I'm paid to sell tickets," Stevens explained. "But the listeners are very smart. They get a feeling when you're not being honest.

"I'm in the entertainment business and being negative is not entertaining and it doesn't sell tickets."

Over the past few years, Stevens hasn't screamed quite as often or quite as loud. Doctors have recommended that he tone it down to preserve his voice. He has, on occasion, missed games because of a failing voice. In January 2008 he couldn't make the trip to Winnipeg because he couldn't talk.

"I went to all these specialists and went to voice therapy and they couldn't find anything," he said. "Finally one doctor said it's just 40 years of overusing the vocal chords. The vocal chords aren't as flexible as they should be, so I have to stay somewhat in control."

Somewhat. He's still excitable, still exuberant when the Amerks win and distressed when they lose.

"We're fortunate in this community to have had Don Stevens for as long as we've had him," Funke said, "and hopefully we'll have him for another 25 years."

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