Former Lightning RW J.T. Brown Retires From Hockey to Join Kraken Broadcast Crew

NHL right-winger J.T. Brown announced his retirement from professional hockey today, moving on to join the broadcast team of the Seattle Kraken alongside John Forslund. Brown is a former member of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Anaheim Ducks, and Minnesota Wild, accumulating 365 games played in his career to go along with 23 goals and 72 points at the NHL level. The undrafted Minnesota native played his first career game and recorded his first career assist against the Winnipeg Jets in 2012.

Most notably, Brown is remembered as the first NHL player to publicly protest against police brutality during the national anthems, raising his fist in solidarity prior to a Lightning road game on October 7, 2017. Brown said that he believed at the time that the gesture had the potential to end his career but felt he had an opportunity to "sacrifice for something bigger than hockey." His protest quickly went viral on Twitter, popularity which Brown says led to him receiving death threats.

Brown joins John Forslund on the Kraken broadcast, a veteran play-by-play voice who only just wrapped up nearly two decades of announcing work with the Carolina Hurricanes, dating all the way back to the team's prior identity as the Hartford Whalers. With that kind of experience backing him up, J.T. Brown has a bright future with the Kraken on-air team.

Photo credit: Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons