Boston Bruins
Edwards stresses that he is wary of AI on most fronts, but appreciates seeing at least one benefit firsthand.
Jack Edwards called Bruins games on NESN for 19 years before retiring after the 2023-24 season. Jim Davis
Jack Edwards, a legendary, engaging interviewer, now requests a text message when a reporter reaches out to comment on a future story on a different topic.
“I prefer texting because my verbal skills are eroding and I can’t express my thoughts like I could before,” the former voice of the NESN Bruins explains, via text, yes.
Edwards, as most loyal Bruins fans know, suffers from a mysterious medical condition called apraxia.
condition, Which he first noticed in the summer of 2022 and became apparent to NESN viewers shortly afterIt leads to pauses, slow speech, and sometimes stuttering of words.
Edwards, his rhetoric having slowed further, retired after the 2023-24 season, later telling the Globe: “I examined my performance and decided that I cannot meet my standards. I accept what I cannot change.”
Edwards, now 69, says he remains in excellent physical health and is mentally sharp. But he admits that his speech continued to deteriorate.
“All is well with me,” he writes, “considering the circumstances of my mouth not working.”
But even though he lost much of his familiar voice, He didn’t lose hopeThis is partly due to the natural optimism he largely retains, and in large part due to the wonders of science and technology.
Edwards has been working with therapist Michelle Gannan at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital to perfect an AI-assisted voice reproduction app that replicates what his voice sounded like during his prime time in the Bruins broadcast booth.
The app, called Speech Assistant, was created by software company ElevenLabs, the company that cloned the actor Voice of Val Kilmer About the movie “Top Gun: Maverick.”
The app’s AI knows the most common shape of Edwards’ voice because it’s loaded with hours of audio from his time in the Bruins’ broadcast booth.
“It’s all about me! It’s a miracle because my voice is much softer than it was before, and I mispronounce words a lot,” he says.
“NESN’s Vice President of Content, Josh John, opened the vault doors and NESN brought five hours of pure Jack to ElevenLabs. “All kinds of expressions, from reading promo tracks to yelling at the referees to the postgame scream I did in 2011 after a Game 7 overtime win over Montreal.”
Here’s part of it, in which he compared the victory to the Boston Tea Party:
“Well, two hundred years ago, a group of rowdy radicals burst out of some Boston tavern, took to the pier and threw the king’s tea into the salt sea. In doing so, he struck a chord that remains true to this day: that when faced with oppressive egos, fighting the good fight is not only the right thing to do—it can be a lot of fun.
“Who has more fun than us?”
He was told that this was likely a significant amount of effort for an AI-based application to solve.
“It’s quite the range of expressions,” he writes.
It works like this: Edwards opens the app on his iPad or phone and types out what he wants to say. Then he presses the play button. After a few seconds, the words he wrote appeared in his voice, which were repeated with the help of the voice fed to the AI.
“I have phrases I say all the time as presets. If I don’t like the tempo or tone, it’s adjustable, and the app can recreate it,” he says.
Edwards used the app during his speech on He is inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame This month.
The app is similar, but not identical, to the ElevenLabs device, which former Channel 4 sports reporter Alice Cooke used to “talk” after she lost her voice to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. cook, As documented by colleague Kevin Paul DuPontin April 2025, uses the app on an iPad connected to a Bluetooth speaker.
Edwards has a Bluetooth speaker, but hasn’t used it.
“I use my iPhone when I’m mobile, and my keyboard and iPad when I’m in a conversation at the table,” he texts.
Meanwhile, Edwards is doing everything he can to save his true voice. He is currently participating in a clinical trial in General Brigham’s Mass It’s called transcranial magnetic stimulation.
“The doctors in this study think it might rewire my brain,” he says.
Edwards stresses that he is wary of AI on most fronts, but appreciates seeing at least one benefit firsthand.
“I fear that AI will spiral out of control, as it does for most people in the US,” he says in a text message. “This is a good aspect of AI. I will continue to do my daily exercises and participate in the clinical trial at MGB in the hope that I can regain some of my ability to speak.
“In the worst-case scenario, where it doesn’t come back, it’s a way to express myself more fully, albeit more slowly because I have to write it down. I need patient conversation partners. My family and friends are empathetic.”