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Steve Armitage: The blue Hockey Night in Canada blazers…

Jim Hughson: I got one right away and I still have it.

Steve Armitage: I own two of them. I will probably donate them to the BC Sports Hall of Fame, of which I am a member, or give them to somebody to take care of.

Jim Robson: I had three. I gave two away for charity auction. I don’t know if they got much for them. I gave one to the Salvation Army. I could just imagine some guy stumbling down Cordova Street [Vancouver’s skid row] wearing a Hockey Night in Canada blazer.

Gary Dornhoefer: I think the moths got mine. Long gone. You know, that blue blazer reminds me of my first year in Philadelphia [playing for the Flyers]. Ed Snider bought everybody an orange blazer. I wore it after a game to a restaurant and some guy thought I was a waiter. I never wore it again.

Steve Lansky: Blue blazers were not kind if you sweated (laughs).

Mark Askin: I’ve got mine. It’s in a glass frame and it’s sitting in my office.

Bill Good: I think mine disappeared in subsequent moves and clean-outs. I had it for quite a while because my kids wore it from time to time to costume parties.

Mark Askin: I had it at the office until about a year ago because I would run seminars for kids at Leafs TV and I would say, “Your goal should be to be as proud of one piece of clothing in your career as I am of this.”

Dick Irvin: I still have it and it’s hanging upstairs in one of the closets.

Doug Sellars: I still remember the place you had to go to get your jacket. It was called “His Place” on Yonge Street. It was right across from our offices in Toronto. You went over, you got measured, and your jacket got delivered. It was quite something. God, awful ugly jackets when you look back. I’ve still got mine. Doesn’t fit as well.

Steve Lansky: I remember being handed the blue blazer for the first time and, really, not even being able to handle the magnitude. Both the blue blazers are hanging up in my closet because I couldn’t bear to ever part with either one of them. I have the one I got when I started and I have the one I got after I had had a few meals on the road (laughs).

Steve Armitage: We used to get a new one every year. The color never changed and the crest never changed, but you do twenty or thirty games a year, the thing would have to be dry-cleaned, the thing would fall apart. I probably went through, in my career, half a dozen of them. I kept two. You put them in the back of your closet. Those days of the robin’s egg blue jacket are long gone, but I can tell you that it was a magnet.

Mark Askin: I’ve seen a couple on Ebay. I don’t know if that would be [from] a crew member or what. I don’t know … but you’d have to tussle me pretty damn hard [for me] to even think of giving it away.

Bill Good: I wore it proudly.

Steve Lansky: They’re actually in the suit bag I got them in, together in the closet, and will remain there until the end of time.

Steve Armitage: You would walk into an American rink where they really wouldn’t know too much about Hockey Night in Canada, but they would recognize the Hockey Night in Canada jacket.

Harry Neale: If you wore them [through] some parts of New York you could get shot. I guess they looked good on television, but when you used to go for a five-game trip … you couldn’t wear your jacket. You couldn’t wear that on the plane. So you always had to pack the damn thing. I never liked it, but that was part of the deal. I don’t think I have it. I don’t know why if I do. I was never a big fan of them … Those powder blue ones. I don’t know who came up with those ones, but I was never a fan of them. It might have looked good on television, I don’t know.

Steve Armitage: That was Ralph’s invention, the choice of the color.

Harry Neale: Next time I see him I’m going to give him my old coat and say, “You can wear this damn thing. I’m not wearing it!” They were strange looking outfits.

John Wells: You know, I had blue blazers and peach blazers and CTV purple blue, and CBC gold blazers… I had them all saved at a point and time. Somehow or other they ended up being tossed. I don’t have any blazers left. And black TSN ones too. There were a lot of blazers … I had a Hockey Night one with the faded blue – the lighter blue blazers – I think it actually ended up hanging in a sportsbar somewhere … As I say, the piece of paper Ralph handed me … I think I bought the blazer for forty-nine bucks at Eaton’s. It was almost in the kids department … I bought that one with my own money. I was pretty excited to get the job so I never really thought about expensing it.

Mark Askin: When you were given it, you didn’t need a pass. It was the pass.

Steve Armitage: It opened more doors quicker than anything I’ve worn representing the CBC because of that distinctive color and crest.

Steve Lansky: The 1985 All-Star Game. I was working on the players’ bench and Ralph was doing the world feed. John was doing the domestic feed, but Ralph was doing the world feed, so ESPN was probably involved and who knows, maybe Sky Channel to England. I can’t remember. Anyway, player introductions finish. Everyone goes to commercial. Andy Van Hellmond [the referee] drifts to center ice. Wayne Gretzky comes to him from one side, Mario Lemieux from the other. I hear Ralph yell, “They can’t drop the puck!” So I hit my key – I’m sitting on the bench – and I say, “What do you mean, Ralph?” “Not everyone’s back from break – he can’t drop the puck!” I said, “Well, Ralph, he’s going to drop the puck!” I’ll leave the [cussing] out, but he says, “Kid! He can’t drop the puck!” So I start yelling, “Andy! Andy!” It’s too loud. Andy can’t hear me. Now I’m in full panic mode. Wayne and Mario are basically five feet from that dot. So, I throw open the gate and I walk toward Andy. I’m wearing my blue blazer. He literally crouches down to drop the puck and I yell, “Andy!” I’m about fifteen feet away from him now. Iremember he mouthed a profanity like, “What the eff are you doing here?” I said to him, “You can’t drop the puck … not everyone’s back from break! You can’t drop the puck!” At this point I realize I’m standing in the middle of the ice and he goes, “Okay!” He turns to Wayne and Mario and says, “Skate around.” They skate around. I said, “I’ll wave to you when you can drop it.” He says, “Okay, kid.” I go back to the bench. I stand on the ice because I know he won’t drop the puck if I stay on the ice. I put my headset back on. Ralph goes, “Oh my God, we’re back. He can drop the puck!” I point at Andy, I hop over the board and Ralph goes, “Good job, kid.”

Mark Askin: When you wore it, there was nowhere you couldn’t go. When the lights went out in 1988 in Boston, I was doing stats in the booth. When the lights went out – I jumped out of the booth and went down to the Oilers dressing room. Not one person said, “What’re you doing?” That jacket was your pass.

Dick Irvin: The last time I wore it was two summers ago at the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. They hired me to do a skit with William Shatner. The guy that was running the show was a big hockey fan and thought I should walk out and do my shtick wearing my Hockey Night in Canada blue jacket. I couldn’t button it.

Mark Askin: When you wore it – you felt like you’d made it. You felt important – real important.

Steve Armitage: Yes. It’s strange. When you put it on you became - Hockey Night in Canada. It symbolized to the guys that wore it – you were a breed apart. You were different from the team broadcaster, the mid-week broadcaster. This was Hockey Night in Canada. It was big.

#Hockey #Hockey Night in Canada #canada #canadian #bob cole #dick irvin #danny gallivan #cbc

1970 - A remarkable sample of Canadian broadcasting legends in their prime. Jim Robson and Danny Gallivan were play-by-play icons, the Vin Scullys of Canada.

An extremely exciting game. The Los Angeles Kings versus the Vancouver Canucks in the first NHL game in Canucks history. Listen to some of Canada’s top radio voices, the pros that made listening to hockey on the radio so fucking entertaining. Remarkable atmosphere, totally engrossing, masters of a vocal art form.

#Jim Robson #hockey #aircheck #Danny Gallivan #British Columbia #vancouver