By Brian McFarlane
Get your children and small pets away from the TV, 'cause the NHL is in your living room!
~Doug McLeod
Perhaps my love affair with broadcasting booths, and one in particular — Foster Hewitt's famous gondola at Maple Leaf Gardens — began when I was six or seven years old. My father, Leslie McFarlane, was a guest in the gondola one night in the mid-thirties. It was the night the Chicago Blackhawks came to town with half a dozen American-born players in their lineup and gave the Leafs quite a battle before losing 3-2.
I'm not certain why my dad was invited to be in the gondola that night, participating in the radio version of Hockey Night in Canada. Perhaps it was because he had a reputation as a skilled writer of hockey fiction. He was also engaged at the time in writing many of the Hardy Boys books under the name Franklin W. Dixon for $100 per book and no royalties. But few people knew about that. When I told a couple of my teenage friends that my dad was F.W. Dixon they looked at me strangely. One of them said, "Oh, sure. And my dad's Turk Broda."
Perhaps, subconsciously, listening to him on the radio that night, I considered the possibility of someday following him along the catwalk that led to that mysterious and magical place where Foster Hewitt made Saturday night the most exciting night of the week. Growing up, along with millions of Canadians, I thrilled to Foster's descriptions of the exploits of Syl Apps, Gordie Drillon and Red Horner. The Leafs were my heroes and I had the Bee Hive Corn Syrup photos to prove it.
One year I wore an old blue hockey jersey to my games of shinny on the local pond in Whitby, Ontario. I asked my mother to cut out a number — two numbers actually, a one and a zero — from a piece of white felt and I had her stitch them side by side on the back. Number 10 was for Apps — my favourite player.
One night, my dad said, "Come with me, you're going to meet one of the great stars of hockey." He took me by the hand to a smoke-filled hall in downtown Whitby. In this hall filled with large men puffing on cigars, my eyes stinging from the vile smoke, I met Syl Apps, captain of the Leafs. He wore a huge overcoat and a fedora. Over the hubbub I asked him for his autograph. He looked down and smiled, then signed my scrap of paper. When I looked at it I was thrilled. "Dad, Dad, look! He signed, 'Best wishes, Syl Apps.' He gave me two extra words." Many years later, I found myself sitting next to Apps in the Gardens' press box and he chuckled when I reminded him of that night in Whitby and how meaningful those extra words were to a young fan.
In the thirties and forties, the hockey broadcasts on radio were mesmerizing. At house parties, the men gathered in the living room around the radio while the women chatted in the kitchen. The party began when the game was over and Foster had selected his three stars. I enjoyed the intermissions, featuring hockey-wise regulars around the Hot Stove, men like Wes McKnight (later to become my boss at CFRB radio in Toronto) Elmer Ferguson, Bobby Hewitson and Baldy Cotton. I envied these men with the authoritative voices. They got in to see all the Leafs games… for free! I was even more impressed when my dad told me the Hot Stove Leaguers actually were paid to sit around a microphone and talk hockey. What a fascinating way to make a living. Even a part-time living.
Perhaps the broadcasting seed was planted then. If I failed to become another Apps, perhaps I could become an announcer! In the meantime, wearing my ragged blue sweater, I skated circles on the pond.
In time I would get to play three years of junior hockey where I would learn that checking Jean Béliveau or scoring a goal against Glenn Hall were daunting tasks. Then followed four years of U.S. college hockey at St. Lawrence University (where I set some records that still stand six decades later) and one brief tryout (I had to ask for it) with the Chicago Blackhawks. By then I had realized I was never going make it to the NHL so I turned my attention to broadcasting.
After two years with a TV station in Schenectady, New York (not much hockey there, folks, so we started a team called the Schenectady Generals and played outdoors on a rinky-dink rink), I put all my belongings in a U-Haul and moved with my family to Toronto. Surely I was ready for a role, any kind of a role, with Hockey Night in Canada.
No such luck. In 1959, there was an audition for the host's job and I was asked to try out. My interview with King Clancy went quite well I thought (who wouldn't look good talking to Clancy?), but Ward Cornell got the job. "You're too young," I was told. That same week, there was a stunning offer from CBS in New York. I was asked to conduct interviews (on skates) and handle commentary for CBS on the NHL Game of the Week. "We're looking for a young announcer, a fresh face," they told me. "And one who can skate." God bless America! I became the first Canadian to work NHL games on a U.S. network and was paid $200 per game. I commuted to the games from Toronto and was able to keep my job with CFRB, a CBS affiliate.
Four years later, there was another opening on Hockey Night in Canada. In those days, Bill Hewitt worked with a different commentator each week, usually a sportswriter. Somehow a decision was made to add a permanent man to the crew and I got the job.
For the next seventeen years I had the best seat in the house — a chair in the gondola — sitting next to broadcast legends Bill and Foster Hewitt and providing commentary to Bill Hewitt's play-by-play.
I chuckle when I recall some of the oddball things that were said and done in those early days. Prior to my very first game, my boss stuck his head in the gondola, called my name, held up three fingers and said, "Brian, I think you should speak three times a period. That'll be a nice balance between you and Bill." I was stunned. I couldn't believe he'd set a quota on the number of comments I was allowed to make. Sorry, boss, but I broke that edict in the first five minutes of my first game.
At the end of each game, I left the gondola and hustled to a place on the catwalk high over the crowd. There I would interview Foster Hewitt and ask him for his three star selections. Perched on the catwalk, above the fans in the green seats, fans would often crane their necks and hoot and holler at us. Occasionally, I'd hear someone shout, "Jump, McFarlane, jump!" Years later, when Gary Dornhoefer joined our crew, and made his debut on the catwalk, he was appalled to hear the fans urge me to jump. "I can't believe they taunt you like that," he said.
I said, "Gary, broadcasters, like referees, have to be thick-skinned."
Dornhoefer was even more shaken during his second trip to the catwalk. The fans below ignored me and began shouting, "Jump, Dornhoefer, jump!"
Get your children and small pets away from the TV, 'cause the NHL is in your living room!
~Doug McLeod
Perhaps my love affair with broadcasting booths, and one in particular — Foster Hewitt's famous gondola at Maple Leaf Gardens — began when I was six or seven years old. My father, Leslie McFarlane, was a guest in the gondola one night in the mid-thirties. It was the night the Chicago Blackhawks came to town with half a dozen American-born players in their lineup and gave the Leafs quite a battle before losing 3-2.
I'm not certain why my dad was invited to be in the gondola that night, participating in the radio version of Hockey Night in Canada. Perhaps it was because he had a reputation as a skilled writer of hockey fiction. He was also engaged at the time in writing many of the Hardy Boys books under the name Franklin W. Dixon for $100 per book and no royalties. But few people knew about that. When I told a couple of my teenage friends that my dad was F.W. Dixon they looked at me strangely. One of them said, "Oh, sure. And my dad's Turk Broda."
Perhaps, subconsciously, listening to him on the radio that night, I considered the possibility of someday following him along the catwalk that led to that mysterious and magical place where Foster Hewitt made Saturday night the most exciting night of the week. Growing up, along with millions of Canadians, I thrilled to Foster's descriptions of the exploits of Syl Apps, Gordie Drillon and Red Horner. The Leafs were my heroes and I had the Bee Hive Corn Syrup photos to prove it.
One year I wore an old blue hockey jersey to my games of shinny on the local pond in Whitby, Ontario. I asked my mother to cut out a number — two numbers actually, a one and a zero — from a piece of white felt and I had her stitch them side by side on the back. Number 10 was for Apps — my favourite player.
One night, my dad said, "Come with me, you're going to meet one of the great stars of hockey." He took me by the hand to a smoke-filled hall in downtown Whitby. In this hall filled with large men puffing on cigars, my eyes stinging from the vile smoke, I met Syl Apps, captain of the Leafs. He wore a huge overcoat and a fedora. Over the hubbub I asked him for his autograph. He looked down and smiled, then signed my scrap of paper. When I looked at it I was thrilled. "Dad, Dad, look! He signed, 'Best wishes, Syl Apps.' He gave me two extra words." Many years later, I found myself sitting next to Apps in the Gardens' press box and he chuckled when I reminded him of that night in Whitby and how meaningful those extra words were to a young fan.
In the thirties and forties, the hockey broadcasts on radio were mesmerizing. At house parties, the men gathered in the living room around the radio while the women chatted in the kitchen. The party began when the game was over and Foster had selected his three stars. I enjoyed the intermissions, featuring hockey-wise regulars around the Hot Stove, men like Wes McKnight (later to become my boss at CFRB radio in Toronto) Elmer Ferguson, Bobby Hewitson and Baldy Cotton. I envied these men with the authoritative voices. They got in to see all the Leafs games… for free! I was even more impressed when my dad told me the Hot Stove Leaguers actually were paid to sit around a microphone and talk hockey. What a fascinating way to make a living. Even a part-time living.
Perhaps the broadcasting seed was planted then. If I failed to become another Apps, perhaps I could become an announcer! In the meantime, wearing my ragged blue sweater, I skated circles on the pond.
In time I would get to play three years of junior hockey where I would learn that checking Jean Béliveau or scoring a goal against Glenn Hall were daunting tasks. Then followed four years of U.S. college hockey at St. Lawrence University (where I set some records that still stand six decades later) and one brief tryout (I had to ask for it) with the Chicago Blackhawks. By then I had realized I was never going make it to the NHL so I turned my attention to broadcasting.
After two years with a TV station in Schenectady, New York (not much hockey there, folks, so we started a team called the Schenectady Generals and played outdoors on a rinky-dink rink), I put all my belongings in a U-Haul and moved with my family to Toronto. Surely I was ready for a role, any kind of a role, with Hockey Night in Canada.
No such luck. In 1959, there was an audition for the host's job and I was asked to try out. My interview with King Clancy went quite well I thought (who wouldn't look good talking to Clancy?), but Ward Cornell got the job. "You're too young," I was told. That same week, there was a stunning offer from CBS in New York. I was asked to conduct interviews (on skates) and handle commentary for CBS on the NHL Game of the Week. "We're looking for a young announcer, a fresh face," they told me. "And one who can skate." God bless America! I became the first Canadian to work NHL games on a U.S. network and was paid $200 per game. I commuted to the games from Toronto and was able to keep my job with CFRB, a CBS affiliate.
Four years later, there was another opening on Hockey Night in Canada. In those days, Bill Hewitt worked with a different commentator each week, usually a sportswriter. Somehow a decision was made to add a permanent man to the crew and I got the job.
For the next seventeen years I had the best seat in the house — a chair in the gondola — sitting next to broadcast legends Bill and Foster Hewitt and providing commentary to Bill Hewitt's play-by-play.
I chuckle when I recall some of the oddball things that were said and done in those early days. Prior to my very first game, my boss stuck his head in the gondola, called my name, held up three fingers and said, "Brian, I think you should speak three times a period. That'll be a nice balance between you and Bill." I was stunned. I couldn't believe he'd set a quota on the number of comments I was allowed to make. Sorry, boss, but I broke that edict in the first five minutes of my first game.
At the end of each game, I left the gondola and hustled to a place on the catwalk high over the crowd. There I would interview Foster Hewitt and ask him for his three star selections. Perched on the catwalk, above the fans in the green seats, fans would often crane their necks and hoot and holler at us. Occasionally, I'd hear someone shout, "Jump, McFarlane, jump!" Years later, when Gary Dornhoefer joined our crew, and made his debut on the catwalk, he was appalled to hear the fans urge me to jump. "I can't believe they taunt you like that," he said.
I said, "Gary, broadcasters, like referees, have to be thick-skinned."
Dornhoefer was even more shaken during his second trip to the catwalk. The fans below ignored me and began shouting, "Jump, Dornhoefer, jump!"
http://www.chickensoup.com
I told him later, "Gary, that's nothing. Years ago, I was making my way through the crowd one night when a guy yelled at me, 'McFarlane, you're the reason I come to the games. I can't stand listening to you at home.' I gave the loudmouth fan a big wave, indicating he'd come up with a good line, a line I used at banquet appearances at least a hundred times."
I witnessed some amazing sights from the old gondola. How we thrilled to the introduction of color television, preceded by the installation of huge banks of lights to illuminate the ice and to make the colorcasts a spectacle. Then there was instant replay. How we gaped at our monitors the first time a goal was scored and seconds later it was magically replayed on our screens. Later, we were able to bring our viewers highlights from games at the Montreal Forum — all within seconds. People everywhere watched in awe and said, "How in the world do they do that? It's amazing."
Sometimes, amazing things happened on the ice below. Hunched forward on my chair, I helped describe some of the greatest events in Toronto's hockey history. One night, February 7, 1976, Darryl Sittler set a record of ten points in a game. His mark has lasted almost forty years.
Ten years earlier, when there were only six teams and 120 NHL players, there was a dramatic Stanley Cup triumph of the Leafs. Imlach's team of old-timers stunned the Montreal Canadiens in the 1967 finals. It was the end of an era because the NHL was about to double in size and many of the Leafs would not be back the following season.
I often wonder how many people are able to say, "I was at the Gardens that night." It's a dwindling number — a few hundred perhaps — while the number of fans who've never witnessed a Leafs Cup win keeps rising — in the multimillions.
There was no better vantage point than the gondola to appreciate the magic of Orr, Hull, Howe and Béliveau, the antics of Eddie Shack, the artistry of Keon, Kelly and Mahovlich, the awesome strength of Tim Horton, the magnificent goaltending of Bower, Sawchuk, Plante.
All too soon they were gone. All too soon, so was I.
I told him later, "Gary, that's nothing. Years ago, I was making my way through the crowd one night when a guy yelled at me, 'McFarlane, you're the reason I come to the games. I can't stand listening to you at home.' I gave the loudmouth fan a big wave, indicating he'd come up with a good line, a line I used at banquet appearances at least a hundred times."
I witnessed some amazing sights from the old gondola. How we thrilled to the introduction of color television, preceded by the installation of huge banks of lights to illuminate the ice and to make the colorcasts a spectacle. Then there was instant replay. How we gaped at our monitors the first time a goal was scored and seconds later it was magically replayed on our screens. Later, we were able to bring our viewers highlights from games at the Montreal Forum — all within seconds. People everywhere watched in awe and said, "How in the world do they do that? It's amazing."
Sometimes, amazing things happened on the ice below. Hunched forward on my chair, I helped describe some of the greatest events in Toronto's hockey history. One night, February 7, 1976, Darryl Sittler set a record of ten points in a game. His mark has lasted almost forty years.
Ten years earlier, when there were only six teams and 120 NHL players, there was a dramatic Stanley Cup triumph of the Leafs. Imlach's team of old-timers stunned the Montreal Canadiens in the 1967 finals. It was the end of an era because the NHL was about to double in size and many of the Leafs would not be back the following season.
I often wonder how many people are able to say, "I was at the Gardens that night." It's a dwindling number — a few hundred perhaps — while the number of fans who've never witnessed a Leafs Cup win keeps rising — in the multimillions.
There was no better vantage point than the gondola to appreciate the magic of Orr, Hull, Howe and Béliveau, the antics of Eddie Shack, the artistry of Keon, Kelly and Mahovlich, the awesome strength of Tim Horton, the magnificent goaltending of Bower, Sawchuk, Plante.
All too soon they were gone. All too soon, so was I.
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий