Hockey Night in Canada: 60 Seasons
Michael McKinley
Language: English
Pages: 352
ISBN: 0670066982
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Before Twitter, before 24-hour sports channels, long before fans watched highlight goals on their phones—long before something called a “highlight” had been invented—there was Hockey Night in Canada. It was cutting-edge technology back then. Anywhere in Canada, a hockey fan could come in from the snow, sit down by the radio, listen to a game played in Montreal or Toronto, and experience the thrill of a game played hundreds, or thousands, of kilometres away. Before all of what we call Canada had joined Confederation, even before the “Original Six,” there was Hockey Night in Canada to define both the country and the game.
Then, sixty years ago, another technological marvel changed the game—and the country—and launched the longest-running program in the world. CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, for the first time, was on television.
At first fans worried that television would ruin the game. Now Canadians can hardly imagine the game without the CBC broadcast.
Hockey Night in Canada: 60 Seasons celebrates the moments, the personalities, and the innovations that have shaped our experience of the game.
What would hockey be without instant replay or the “three stars”? What would it be without Foster Hewitt, Howie Meeker, Peter Puck, or mythical moments like Bobby Orr’s Stanley Cup–winning goal? What would the game be without the Saturday night double-header, or Coach’s Corner, or Bob Cole’s “Stand up and cheer, Canada!” at the 2002 Olympics? Hockey Night in Canada: 60 Seasons celebrates not only what is great about the game, but how Hockey Night in Canada has come to define it.
Written by Michael McKinley, author of Hockey: A People’s History, with a foreword by Ron MacLean and richly illustrated with rare on-screen and archival material, Hockey Night in Canada: 60 Seasons features behind-the-scenes glimpses into the way the broadcast was born and developed and little-known stories about the men and women who have brought our game to life in sixty fascinating moments.
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boyhood dream: being interviewed on Hockey Night in Canada. Neither he, nor Ward Cornell, has any notion of the tragedy being played out between Spencer’s father and the RCMP more than 3,300 kilometres to the west. BRIAN SPENCER’S DAD 139 CBC affiliate, to convince them that his son’s game was the one people wanted to see. And he would do it with a shotgun. Brian Spencer’s first Hockey Night in Canada interview is laden with pathos when viewed more than three decades later. At the
from Flin Flon, Manitoba, was told he was too scrawny to last in hockey. He responded with a 15-season NHL career, winning two Stanley Cups and three Hart Trophies as league MVP. 30 158 HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA of strategy. The results were so startling—on several levels—that the Flyers, whose rink was on Philadelphia’s Broad Street, became known as the “Broad Street Bullies.” It was not a term of affection. After watching the Flyers mangle the Canucks in 1973, Vancouver Sun columnist
hymning the exploits of the icemen over the airwaves of the Canadian National Railway’s network. The General Motors Hockey Broadcast was his own opera, his voice soaring on the roar—or falling with the silence—of the crowd. By the end of 1933–34, Hewitt’s hockey broadcast could be heard over a twenty-station radio network from Canada’s east to west coasts, as could hockey broadcasts from Montreal. By 1936, there were nearly 900,000 radios in Canada—and four people listening to each, for a
aid his artistry. In his smoking days, he’d light up a cigarette—in a holder, no less—the tobacco giving tang to his voice. He also liked to undo his belt buckle and expand his diaphragm. It led to a comic result—at least once—when calling a game in the tight broadcast BOB COLE 287 space at Quebec’s Le Colisée. Cole, whose intensity level is high no matter what happens on the ice, jumped up when a goal was scored. He banged his head on plumbing pipes directly above him, sending debris down to
Americans’ game, it’s not the Russians’ game, it’s our game,” Mellanby says. “It’s a very important part of our culture. John Diefenbaker told me one time that “our greatest heroes in Canada are hockey players.” And that’s true. It’s part of being Canadian.” 318 HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA Photo Credits 319 All photos not listed below are courtesy of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2 Steven Taylor/Getty Images 8 Lou Skuce/Hockey Hall of Fame 11, 15 Courtesy of Mike Wilson