Oct 18, 2024
CBC Radio personalities of the 1940s
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CBC Radio personalities of the 1940s
"1926 - November 13 - Foster Hewitt, sitting out on the slippery roof of Richardson Stadium, calling the Queen's-Varsity football game for CFCA, Toronto, froze to the spot after rain turned to hail. He had to be broken free and hauled off the roof with ropes."
Hey, what the fuck was going on in sports in 1926? During a varsity sports game, the announcer was commentating on the game sat on the roof of the stadium it was being played in, when it began to rain. He kept calling the game. Rain turned to hail and he didn't move. Sat there with his microphone, Hewitt fucking froze to the spot, and after the game they had to break him out of the ice and get him off the roof with ropes. What the fuck.
Also, this guy Foster Hewitt was a big name in Canadian hockey commentary, he'd been the regular commentator for CBC's still-running hockey broadcast, Hockey Night In Canada in the 1930s. He coined the iconic phrase, "he shoots, he scores!" And he froze to the top of a roof at Queen's University. Great.
Unfortunately I cannot find anything else about this historic game and freezing conditions, all I have are the Broadcast history of Canada's word for it. I believe it though, sports fans are mad.
Foster Hewitt | Old Canada
Mary and Huey.
1989.
The Rick Moranis Parody of a Toronto Maple Leafs Broadcast.
Foster Hewitt: A Face Made for Radio
Foster Hewitt was Canada’s original hockey broadcaster, the voice of Hockey Night in Canada for several decades, and the man who coined the famous call, “He shoots! He scores!”
There was also a controversial side to Foster Hewitt that few listeners were aware of, but which made many of his colleagues uncomfortable.
The sports writer Scott Young wrote, “One other side of Foster’s character was a thinly veiled prejudice against minorities.”
Bud Turner of MacLaren Advertising, the agency that had the Hockey Night in Canada account said, “He offended me personally on many occasions. He was highly prejudiced, awful, yet obviously he had some sense of propriety in that what he said depended a lot on who his audience was.”
Foster Hewitt never openly displayed his racist streak if, say, his waiter in a restaurant was Black. He would wait until they were out of earshot before making his disparaging remark.
“But other times he seemed reckless of consequences,” said Scott Young. “Once, entering the Flame Showbar in Detroit after a hockey game, he stepped inside the door and exclaimed loudly enough for at least those nearby to hear, ‘Geez, the place is full of [racial slur]s!’ … Foster left.”
Many years later, Canadian Sports Network’s number one man, Ted Hough, tried to coerce Hewitt into removing the blackface lawn jockey he displayed in his yard. The last thing the show wanted was a Foster Hewitt scandal. But he refused to remove it, claiming it was a matter of principle.
Dick Irvin: I did a big band radio show for fourteen years here in Montreal.
Kliph Nesteroff: What was the name of your show?
Dick Irvin: Well, it had a variety of names. Usually it was called Dick Irvin’s Bandstand.
Kliph Nesteroff: Do you have memories of listening to Hockey Night in Canada growing up before you were involved with it? Your dad was a bigshot with the Montreal Canadiens when you were a child.
Dick Irvin: Yes, every Saturday night was Foster Hewitt on Hockey Night in Canada. I’ve always said that I’m just carrying on the tradition of my father. He played in the first game that was ever on radio, in 1923, in Regina. A man named Pete Parker did the broadcast. So he played in that game and he was the coach the night that Hockey Night in Canada did its first television broadcast – en francais – La Soiree du Hockey. The was the first game that they ever did on television in Canada and he coached it. And I just followed in the tradition.
Kliph Nesteroff: Do you remember the first time your saw Hockey Night in Canada on television?
Dick Irvin: No, I don’t, but I know that 1944 was my first time listening to the playoffs on radio. It was Montreal and Chicago in the Stanley Cup Finals. Toe Blake scored the winning goal in overtime. I used to have the tape of that broadcast.
Kliph Nesteroff: You moved to Montreal to attend McGill University...
Dick Irvin: Yes. At the end of the hockey season, my dad for some reason, decided to move the family. He was going to continue coaching the Montreal Canadiens, which he did for a total of fifteen years, so he moved us. In the summer of 1951 we drove from Regina to Montreal. The first winter my folks sublet an apartment three blocks from the Forum. But between our place and the Forum was a place called the Seville Theater and they used to show live acts in addition to the movies. The live acts I saw were Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Rosemary Clooney, Harry Belafonte, The Dorsey Band and all this sort of stuff. And there were shows at the Montreal Forum. The first show I ever saw at the Forum was the Duke Ellington Orchestra with Sarah Vaughn. My dad had access and I would get in. I had access to the Forum through my dad...
Kliph Nesteroff: You scored a job as a jack-of-all-trades at CFCF TV?
Dick Irvin: I did everything. I did bowling shows and horse race shows and kids shows, and quiz shows. I moved in and did color commentary for Danny Gallivan in the playoffs in 1967. The first series was the Montreal Canadiens versus the New York Rangers. Canadiens won four straight. The next series was that famous last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup.
Kliph Nesteroff: You once said that your initial encounter with the legendary hockey broadcaster Foster Hewitt was disappointing or underwhelming.
Dick Irvin: Yeah, he never seemed to know who I was. He knew my dad, for gosh sakes. I’ve got a book downstairs by Foster Hewitt. It has got to be one of the first hockey books written in Canada, certainly by a broadcaster, and its signed to my dad. It was written in the early thirties. It’s called Down the Ice. I did a couple games on the road with him. But he never seemed to know who I was. He always called me “kid.” Never called me Dick or made any reference to my folks. He was kind of strange. And that was a bit strange.