Quietly, amidst negotiations for a new media contract with Rogers Sportsnet, Canada’s oldest scheduled program died a silent death. Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC), the most durable sports broadcast in North America, will not return to CBC or any other network when the NHL season debuts its Saturday night hockey lineup on Oct. 3. Many will blame the big media conglomerates and the league itself for allowing this hallowed institution to fail, but several factors drove the decision. In a series of podcasts on 100% Hockey, John Shannon and Daren Millard spoke with some of the most prominent figures from the show’s run, including Dick Irvin, Dave Hodge, Chris Cuthbert, Mickey Redmond, Al Strachan, Jim Hughson, John Davidson, and Kelly Hrudey. This article will share some of their stories, appreciate the institution that became HNIC, and explain why the show will endure even as the name disappears.
THE STORIES – PART 1 (Dave Hodge & Dick Irvin)
Canada has had hockey fans for over a century. Playing, watching, and cheering have grown over the years, but the number one show on Canadian television was no accident. Since Foster Hewitt called play-by-play on the radio in the early 1920s, Canadians have embraced the game as their own. Beginning in 1952, the CBC began airing games on TV across Canada, enabled by new technology and a deal with the NHL. The names of the hosts from the show’s early days have faded from most people’s memories. Few would remember Scott Young (father of singer Neil Young) or Wes McKnight, but some recall Ward Cornell, Jack Dennet, or Bob Goldham, who worked on the HNIC broadcasts in the 1970s. Those who wore the baby-blue jackets and filled fans’ minds from the Bobby Orr era to Wayne Gretzky are better known. At only 42 years old, Dave Hodge, who had hosted the program since 1971, was fired after showing excessive frustration with the network during the 1987 Stanley Cup playoffs. Hodge, a consummate broadcaster with some of the best pipes ever heard on sportscasts, could probably still be doing the hosting duties if he had just maintained his cool under pressure. As he tells the story on the podcast, “There was a certain finality to the end of my Hockey Night career. I flipped a pen or lost my temper, if you will, when for the second time in about six hours, CBC decided to end a sporting event near its climactic moment and leave the viewers hanging. It left me hanging on air, trying to explain. I had no explanation. I thought it was a mistake. I guess I reflected that, the way I reacted to the fact that we were leaving a game that hadn’t been decided. That was it. Was I fired? No. Did I quit? No. I just took another job.” Later in the interview, Hodge would freely admit that the best job of his career was hosting HNIC. While forever grateful for the opportunity, he wishes it had never ended.
Dick Irvin, now 94, began his run on HNIC in 1965-66 when he moved into the booth with the legendary Danny Gallivan to help deliver Montreal Canadiens broadcasts on Wednesday nights. Irvin would become the first person in HNIC history to call games, provide commentary, and host on the same broadcast. He was the MVP (Most Versatile Personality). Keith Dancy, a man familiar to Niagara Falls residents, had been Gallivan’s colour man and a full-time executive at CFCF Radio in Montreal, and later founded the Niagara Broadcasting Company, which operated local stations like CJRN in Niagara Falls. Irvin related story after story in the interview, sharing tidbits like Danny Gallivan and Foster Hewitt being so tied to their teams that Gallivan never called a game in Maple Leaf Gardens, and Hewitt’s first call in the Montreal Forum occurred after he came out of retirement to call the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the USSR. Another beauty he told involved legendary Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown and Oscar-winning actor George Kennedy. In 1968, Irvin called games on the radio for CBC, and the team travelled to play the old Oakland Seals and then the Kings in Los Angeles. Brown was at the game with Kennedy, an irrepressible hockey fan whose dad had taken young George to New York Americans games (a defunct NHL team from the era before the Original Six teams in 1942-1967). Kennedy had just won the Academy Award for Cool Hand Luke, and while he knew all about hockey, Brown had never been to a game. Irvin doubts he ever attended another one. Finally, Irvin talked about his long association with Danny Gallivan. Irvin had known Gallivan for years, but in 1967 they started a 17-year run that included eight Stanley Cups for Montreal. As Irvin recalls, “I mean, he just accepted me like, you know, a guy that had never talked in a hockey broadcast in his life. Suddenly, here I am sitting beside him doing colour on a Montreal Canadiens game at the Montreal Forum…I learned a lot from him, of course, right off the bat. And we just clicked.” Irvin also related the end of Gallivan’s career in 1984. After the Islanders defeated Montreal, Irvin and Gallivan were sent to Edmonton to cover the final between New York and Edmonton. After they flew back to Montreal, Dick told Danny he would see him in Edmonton on Saturday. Danny told him he wouldn’t be there. He was finished. Irvin said he thought Danny might have been a bit under the weather and would come around. He never called another game on HNIC.
HNIC as an Institution
Over the years, Saturday night hockey became so synonymous with the CBC and Hockey Night in Canada that many fans in their fifties and sixties think of the old HNIC theme as the soundtrack of their youth. Many think of the baby-blue jackets as the golden era of hockey broadcasting and the Hot Stove Panel as the best years of NHL coverage. Doris Claman composed the HNIC theme song in 1968, while Jerry Toth orchestrated it. For 40 years (1968-2008), the song welcomed HNIC into Canadian homes at 8:00 p.m. on Saturdays until 1998, when games moved up to a 7:00 p.m. start and doubleheaders became commonplace. Most of our generation will miss the features that defined the program on CBC, but Rogers has been angling to turn the evening into an updated version for a new generation. Marketing may tell them that they have to change. Older fans don’t have to like it. The loss of HNIC will change how we remember the game’s broadcast, but Saturday nights will remain hockey nights, and Rogers will still benefit from the show’s longevity. Although the HNIC brand will disappear, the legacy will live on.
Part two of this series will discuss why HNIC will live on and some more thoughts from those who delivered the broadcasts over the past few decades.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
