The 67-year-old play-by-play voice of Peoria hockey announced his retirement last fall, because the travel demands had become too much to take. And now, all he wants to do is travel.
To Milwaukee today. Then on to Winnipeg next week. And Hamilton or Rochester after that. He'd go to Katmandu, for crying out loud, if he had to.
Ulrich holds up his hands, showing off one giant championship ring on each. He got one for calling the Rivermen's 1991 Turner Cup championship in the old IHL, the other for pulling the same shift during their 2000 Kelly Cup run in the ECHL.
Thanks to a 3-2 loss to Omaha in a sudden-death shootout Saturday night, that dream first will require the Rivermen to pick up one point in the race for the final playoff berth out of the Western Conference.
If you've never heard Ulrich broadcast a game, you owe it to yourself to tune into WIRL-AM (1290) at 4 p.m. today for the Rivermen regular-season finale at Milwaukee. Just in case the game turns out to be his career finale, too.
You don't have to be a Rivermen fan, or even know icing from the crease, to appreciate the crusty fellow who found his niche in hockey and earned a place in Peoria's long line of broadcasting treasures. All you need to do is sit back, close your eyes and listen.
"I was so bad when I started out," Ulrich says, recalling his first Rivermen game in 1988. He was a baseball guy; that was his passion. But hockey landed in his lap, and it didn't take long for him to realize he was on thin ice.
"I told my wife, 'I have to figure something out here. It's not very exciting for people listening, and I don't want to continue to embarrass myself,' " Ulrich says. "So I decided to do games as a fan and react to what happened on the ice as fans would react. ... That saved my career."
Ulrich has a perfect voice for hockey. It's deep and strong, with a rough edge from brawling with too many cigarettes. His perspective is spot on, too. You won't hear him bad-mouth a player. Ever. But he won't let a lazy or bad play skate without comment, either.
"He's honest," Rivermen co-owner Bruce Saurs says. "He tells it like it is, but he's fair. And he's always sincere in his desire for us to succeed. People like him."
An hour before game time Saturday night at Carver Arena, a scout from an opposing team stepped down to Ulrich's spot on press row to shake his hand and wish him well. And the parade started. All game long and during the intermissions, fans trekked to Ulrich's perch above the mezzanine. They took pictures, asked for his autograph, presented him culinary gifts and bouquets of flowers. One fan baked him a two-tiered cake with a puck on top. Men and women hugged him. Some of the women kissed him.
At the second intermission, his family gathered around him, and there was a special ceremony to honor him. Too bad Rivermen management was asleep at the planning meeting and allowed the ritual T-shirt toss to disrupt the show. Still, he received a rousing ovation, well-deserved.
Never in his life did Ulrich imagine something like this. The son of a Baptist minister, his family was constantly on the move, and he attended three high schools in three towns in four years, ultimately graduating from Peoria's Woodruff High before joining the Marines at age 17. When he got out of the service, Ulrich sold insurance, worked for loan-finance companies, then for Western Electric. He was in his 30s and living in Belleville when his wife, Pearl, saw an ad for a broadcast school in St. Louis and suggested he enroll.
Ulrich stayed long enough to acquire the skills to get hired by Belleville radio station WIBV in May 1973. Five months later, he landed a TV job at WEEK in Peoria. But he didn't wind up with a regular play-by-play gig until 1988, when WTAZ radio put him behind the mike for Rivermen hockey and Chiefs baseball.
And then - when he decided one pro sports season a year was all he could reasonably handle and still raise a family, which eventually would grow to four kids and eight grandchildren - Ulrich chose hockey, rather than baseball.
He marveled at the athleticism of the hockey players, the skill required to execute at high speed, to cope with the brute violence and keep playing, all while skating on ice and handling a stick.
He got under ours, too. In a good way. One thousand, four hundred seven games, Ulrich has called. Only once in his career have the Rivermen missed the playoffs. That was two seasons ago, the franchise's last in the ECHL.
Last week, when the Rivermen's current playoff hopes appeared even dimmer than they do today, Ulrich shuddered at the prospect of going out on a down note. Saturday night, because they lost after regulation time expired, the Rivermen picked up one more precious point in the standings, meaning the playoffs remain on the line this afternoon.
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