Lou Nanne’s last call. Off the mike — but not slowing down — after this year’s state hockey tournament

Lou Nanne’s voice is so distinctive that four decades ago it helped to launch a thousand radio shows.

Scott Meier, the station manager at AM-1500 in St. Paul, made the astute decision to bring back the previously fired tandem of Soucheray and Reusse for a two-hour show titled “Monday Night Sports Talk” in 1983.

Greg Harrington called in to converse with the hosts in the voices of Frank Quilici (happily enthused), Neal Broten (burdened whine) and Nanne, with a twang all his own — surely an amalgam of voices heard on the neighborhood ice rinks in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario — and years of chaos ensued.

You didn’t need to be around back then, or at any point in the past 60-plus years, to know when Nanne was being interviewed, first as a Gopher, then as a North Star, an NHL dealmaker and in recent times with regular appearances on Dan Barreiro’s drive-time KFAN radio show. Hear a half-sentence and the thought was (and remains) automatic: “Louie … I wonder what great tale he’s about to offer.”

This New Year was kicked off with the news that Nanne would be “retiring” from public duties, but we soon found out that it was a Mark Rosen-style retirement:

Louie was giving up one thing on his busy calendar, his duties as an analyst during the boys hockey state tournament.

Nanne had graduated with a degree and many hockey honors as a Gopher in May 1963. The local independent station was Channel 11 (WTCN) and station manager Bob Fransen asked Nanne to join the telecast at the St. Paul Auditorium in February 1964.

International Falls was starting its dynastic three-year title run that winter. Frank Beutel was doing the play-by-play and Nanne remains impressed 60 years later with the length of the ash “Beauty” could maintain on his cigarette as he waited for a break in the action.

The next February came the first edition of the wireless mic, and Nanne used the opportunity to wander through the stands and interview spectators.

“I had gotten to know the wrestlers from being at WTCN, when they were taping the weekly TV show,” he said. “I got the Crusher to show up.

“Then, I acted surprised when I saw him in the crowd. He stood up with a goalie stick and talked about his greatness as a hockey player … even though I’m guessing he couldn’t skate.”

Louie and Francine Potvin, from four houses down the block in The Soo, had been dating since they were young teens. They were married in the summer of 1962, before Louie’s senior year at Minnesota. They became parents with Michelle on May 18, 1963.

The Blackhawks owned Nanne’s rights in the six-team NHL. When Chicago sent Louie a letter that did not include the guaranteed contract promised by General Manager Tommy Ivan, Nanne refused to report.

Once Nanne went to work for Harvey Mackay, former Gophers golfer turned booster, he was making more money selling envelopes than the NHL was paying most players.

Quality of income became even more important when Francine delivered twins, Michael and Mark, on May 13, 1964. The twins came home from the hospital on the same day Michelle turned one. “How was Louie’s diaper changing?” Francine was asked on Tuesday evening — while dining with family members at Tavern 23, the Edina restaurant named in tribute to Louie.

“Nonexistent,” she said.

Through it all, playing for the North Stars, running the North Stars, convincing his NHL partners to approve the two craziest manpower decisions in sports history — allowing the merger of the Cleveland Barons and the North Stars in 1978, and dividing up the rosters of the North Stars and the expansion San Jose Sharks in 1991 ...

Through hockey gone up, down and sideways, and then charging into the financial world for 30-plus years, Nanne was there to analyze the one-class and then Class 2A tournaments.

Youngest child Marty scored the winning goal for Edina’s state championship team in 1984, and Louie also called the action for grandsons Tyler and Louie in the state tournament. He was on a Wild telecast this season when grandson Vinni Lettieri scored against the Islanders in November.

The hockey life made the Nannes comfortable and his headfirst involvement in finding huge investments for RBC Wealth Management made them wealthy.

Louie and Francine spend six months a year in Florida, in a huge 12th-floor condo that overlooks a bay occupied by Tiger Woods’ yacht, among others.

There was tragedy along the way, with the death of Michael, a grand fellow and father of four, who died at 48 in 2012 because of brain cancer.

Everyone wants him always to be good old Louie — just as was the case Wednesday morning at the Dunkers Club breakfast meeting at Interlachen, where the crowd of 150 hooted at his stories — but how was he able to handle Michael’s death?

“Francine was incredibly strong,’’ Louie said. “And Michael had lost a leg in a motorcycle accident when he was 18 and could have died then, so we made ourselves be thankful for those extra 30 years that we had such a great person.”

There are 10 grandchildren, and a 10th great-grandchild on the way, and a compound at Balsam Lake in Wisconsin for frequent summer family gatherings.

And, yes, Louie will miss being at the hockey state tournament after this year’s broadcasting farewell, but for a man soon to turn 83, for a man credited with the most influential lobbying to bring the World Junior Championship to the Twin Cities in 2026, here’s what we say:

Louie … retirement? No chance.