Eli Gold to call Birmingham Bulls hockey games

Eli Gold visits the office of longtime friend and Birmingham Bulls general partner Art Clarkson. Gold will do play-by-play for most of the games in the Bulls' upcoming season. (Solomon Crenshaw Jr./Alabama NewsCenter)
Eli Gold, the voice of University of Alabama football, is returning to his Birmingham hockey roots, signing on to do play-by-play duties for the new Birmingham Bulls.
Gold’s latest side gig will not take him away from his gridiron duties with the Crimson Tide.
“I’ve been blessed forever and ever,” Gold said. “My entire adult life, I have worked but I have never really had a job. Doing Alabama games, what could be better? For years, I’ve done NASCAR. For years, I’ve done hockey. I do a lot of other stuff – NFL games – and that’s not work.”
As soon as Gold learned Art Clarkson was bringing the Bulls back, he got on the phone to his longtime friend. The two have been acquainted since both were in Virginia.
In those days, Gold was doing hockey for the Tidewater Sharks in Norfolk.
“He was my play-by-play guy for three years with the Birmingham Barons and I’ve watched his whole career progress,” Clarkson said. “He loves his hockey. He really loves hockey. That’s what got him to Birmingham in the first place.”
Gold did radio broadcasts of Nashville Predators games in the National Hockey League. Changes in that organization set the stage for his return to call the action on Birmingham area ice, albeit at the Pelham Civic Complex.
“They said, ‘We’d like you to continue on but you have to move to Nashville,’” the announcer recounted. “And you have to do every game. They were not going to any longer give me Saturdays off to do Bama football.
“That busted that deal up because I was not going to give up the Alabama gig.”
Clarkson was more than willing to work around Gold’s football commitments.
“We’ve got four straight Friday nights and only one Saturday,” the general partner said. “We only have one conflict in the whole bunch, and that’s a Saturday night where he has to travel.
“I made sure we don’t play on the SEC championship game,” Clarkson said. “I made sure we don’t play on the national championship game.”
Gold will not travel to the Bulls’ games in Peoria, Illinois, Evansville, Indiana, Fayetteville, Arkansas, or Roanoke, Virginia. “He’s basically booked to do 45 of the 58 dates,” Clarkson said.
“Hockey was always a great love of mine and it is what got me to Birmingham originally back in 1977,” Gold said. “It’s kind of like coming full circle.”