"Michael James David Robitaille" is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman (ice hockey)/defenceman and commentator. He played in the National Hockey League with the New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and Vancouver Canucks.

Robitaille played in 382 regular season NHL games, scoring 23 goals and adding 105 assists. He was most well known for his punishing hip checks. He also appeared in 13 playoff games, six with Buffalo and seven for Vancouver, tallying one assist. His career ended pre-maturely in 1977 when he was blind-sided by Dennis Owchar of the Pittsburgh Penguins, which caused nerve damage in his neck. He would later win a lawsuit against the Canucks for mistreating his injuries.

Robitaille was born in Midland, Ontario, and joined the Sabres' broadcasting arm in 1989. He was one of the founders of Hockey Hotline, the Buffalo Sabres' postgame show on Empire Sports Network, in 1991 and worked for the Sabres and various sister outlets until his retirement from television in 2014. He is known for his colorful analogies and exaggerations.

During the 2000s, Robitaille was the fill-in commentator whenever play-by-play announcer Rick Jeanneret and former color commentators Jim Lorentz or Harry Neale couldn't fulfill their duties on a game day broadcast.

More Mike Robitaille on Wikipedia.

First word that comes to my mind is elegant. He walked in a room, it meant something. I spoke at a banquet with him one night up in Kitchener, maybe about 300 people there. Everybody was talking, there was a din, you couldn't hear anything. Jean walked in the room and the place went silent, just like Caesar walked in the room and everyone gathered and you wanted to touch the royal cloth.

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When they came into a building it wasn't like a bunch of ragamuffins. It was different. It wasn't like the Oakland Seals walking in. The knot in their tie was tight and correct, all that stuff.

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