True Patriot Love - The Death of Hockey Night In Canada ft. Steve Lansky

00:00:00.000 Steve Lansky is one of the most experienced and accomplished producers in the history of Canadian

00:00:08.840 sports television. You can follow him at Big Mouth Sports and get more insight from a man who at the

00:00:15.220 start of his stellar career was the youngest producer of the history of Hockey Night in Canada

00:00:19.520 and he joins us at ANTPL Media. Steve, how are you my friend? I'm great Jim, how are you? Good,

00:00:25.240 It's a thrill to have you on.

00:00:26.580 I'm a huge fan of your social media content and your insight

00:00:30.040 to what life was really like in Hockey Night in Canada,

00:00:33.680 especially after the last few weeks with the shocking announcement

00:00:36.500 that no longer Saturday Night Hockey in Canada.

00:00:40.500 It is a bit of a stunner.

00:00:42.400 For someone who produced Hockey Night in Canada in the early, mid, late 80s,

00:00:47.360 explain to the listeners what was it like in Hockey Night in Canada at that time.

00:00:51.700 I call it the golden age of Hockey Night in Canada

00:00:54.420 because I started as a statistician.

00:00:57.260 I was a stats guy for four years, 79 to 83.

00:01:00.400 And then I was a producer from 83 to 88.

00:01:03.060 And to me, that was the absolute heyday of Hockey Night.

00:01:06.640 We, I wouldn't say we own the network,

00:01:09.520 but we felt like we own the network,

00:01:11.340 which maybe those are two different things,

00:01:13.100 but they weren't to us.

00:01:14.840 And news, CBC News and, you know, the National

00:01:19.980 and us were budding head to head

00:01:21.980 every single time we did a show

00:01:24.140 because we all wanted to own and run the network

00:01:26.720 and the cachet that came with that

00:01:30.240 and we wore the baby blue blazers.

00:01:32.420 I look back and I think,

00:01:34.120 I can't believe I was lucky enough to do that

00:01:37.300 for a decade on various levels.

00:01:40.040 It almost blows my mind.

00:01:42.580 And Steve, you know, as someone of my vintage,

00:01:45.940 Don Whitman, Don Cherry, Dave Hodge,

00:01:50.060 Bob Cole, Harry Neal, Jim Robson,

00:01:53.260 Danny Gallivan the names are on the pantheon are the greatest this country's ever produced

00:01:58.120 you're naming names and all I can do is think of stories and you said Harry Neal oh my god Harry

00:02:06.560 Neal the funniest man I have ever met in my life in my entire life the funniest man we're at the

00:02:15.420 Minnesota airport one time and Harry and I drive up and we're flying back to Toronto I think and

00:02:21.260 So we pull up and then a guy from the NHL

00:02:24.100 that I won't name pulls up behind us.

00:02:27.660 And he's an older guy, he's probably 65 years old,

00:02:32.080 something like that.

00:02:32.920 So we get out of the cab and we're getting our bags out

00:02:35.460 and he gets out of the cab. 0.82

00:02:37.500 And this lady is driving the cab and she's not 65, 0.98

00:02:41.620 she's about 25 and pretty good looking.

00:02:45.560 And Harry just looks at him and says,

00:02:47.040 hey, what cab company is that? Harry, like it just, it just came out. It never stopped. It just

00:02:57.960 came out with Harry. And that was every day with all of these guys. It was crazy.

00:03:04.400 You know, and you had a front row seat to the creation of Ron and Dawn, Steve. And for me,

00:03:10.700 as a viewer, as someone going through school and getting into my broadcast career,

00:03:15.160 I felt Don Cherry became a TV star during the 1987 Stanley Cup playoffs.

00:03:20.760 When did you realize that you had something special in Don Cherry

00:03:24.280 and he would become the icon that he did?

00:03:27.780 Well, he started, if I'm not mistaken,

00:03:32.520 he got fired by Colorado and Ralph Mellenby,

00:03:35.400 who I cannot say enough about his creativity

00:03:39.000 and his ability to have built Hockey Night in Canada into what it was.

00:03:43.920 Ralph was like nobody I've ever seen, had an ego like nobody I've ever seen, and he needed it because that's what he used.

00:03:51.080 So he brought Don Cherry in in about 1980, and I did a bunch of shows where Dave Hodge hosted Coach's Corner with Dawn.

00:04:01.340 And Dave Hodge had no patience and no time for Dawn.

00:04:08.600 We were in Calgary one time, and we had a 15-minute window to send them Coach's Corner

00:04:15.900 because we were the national game that night.

00:04:18.360 So Don went to where the national game was, so there'd be an early game in Toronto,

00:04:21.880 but then we were the national game in Calgary.

00:04:24.360 So we had a 15-minute satellite window to do Coach's Corner, Dave and Don.

00:04:30.500 It was all choreographed.

00:04:31.980 It was all scripted.

00:04:32.860 Nothing was off the cuff.

00:04:33.860 And at one point, Don had to talk about Chris Katsopoulos, who played for the Hartford Whalers.

00:04:39.760 And he could not, you know where this is going, he could not say Katsopoulos.

00:04:44.160 And instead of just letting it go, David stopped and said, Don, it's Katsopoulos, let's do it again.

00:04:50.580 Well, now we're doing this for the third time.

00:04:52.620 And they're saying in Toronto, you only have a four minutes left on the window.

00:04:55.820 And I'm saying, guys, you can't stop again.

00:04:58.500 You have to do this.

00:05:00.120 So he gets it.

00:05:01.320 He kicks Katsopoulos again.

00:05:02.980 and Dave just goes, whatever, and then they carry on.

00:05:08.160 And so they were just at loggerheads the whole time.

00:05:11.740 And then Ron took over from Dave after Dave flipped his pen

00:05:15.480 and Ron was kind of a kinder, gentler Dave.

00:05:18.740 He would kind of guide Dawn in a direction

00:05:22.260 he thought would benefit Dawn.

00:05:24.260 Whereas I don't think Dave ever did that.

00:05:26.000 I think Dave and Dawn were just kind of

00:05:28.360 an entertainment mechanism

00:05:29.960 and Ron and Dawn became more than that.

00:05:32.980 And so was it about that 86, 87, 88, that two or three-year window where Don went from being on Hockey Night in Canada to being the guy in Canada?

00:05:44.560 Yeah, that's probably right. That's probably right. And he had a few moments and opportunities.

00:05:50.780 I remember I was in Montreal the night that the Flyers and the Canadians fought before the game even started.

00:05:56.580 and I know Ron and Don were there

00:05:58.660 and I was in the studio, I was talking to Don

00:06:00.660 and he got very upset at one point

00:06:02.340 about something I can't remember.

00:06:04.120 He may or may not have lunged at me.

00:06:06.180 I don't know if I can reveal that here

00:06:08.340 but I think when Don had those opportunities

00:06:12.060 he was kind of at his best 0.98

00:06:13.320 because he'd say, this is ridiculous, this is crazy, 0.98

00:06:15.960 this should never happen, that should never happen.

00:06:18.600 So I think those things kind of helped build him into a star

00:06:21.420 and I thought Ron was really good

00:06:23.140 at kind of molding that persona that had started back in the 80s

00:06:29.260 when it was really rough, and he kind of smoothed Don out a little bit.

00:06:33.440 So before we get into sort of any criticism of Ron McClain,

00:06:37.060 explain to the people watching this, Steve,

00:06:40.000 what was it about Ron that made him so good

00:06:42.020 that for so long in Canadian broadcasting?

00:06:45.620 Isn't that funny?

00:06:46.940 So John Shannon, who was our senior producer in Calgary,

00:06:50.560 and I, we have to replace Jim Van Horn, who's hosting the Flames on two and seven, a midweek

00:06:56.780 broadcast. And this is in 1984. Jim Van Horn goes to TSN. We have to replace him. So we're going to

00:07:04.020 audition 11 people, if I recall correctly, I've got it in my notes somewhere, but we're going to

00:07:08.360 audition 11 people. And a bunch of people, guys from CFCN in Calgary, maybe another person from

00:07:15.880 Red Deer, a few more people at two and seven.

00:07:19.860 And we're gonna basically mock up an intermission.

00:07:23.020 We're gonna come back, Jim Poplinski, God love him,

00:07:25.480 came in and he was our player guest, yeah.

00:07:28.540 So all the guys would interview Pep.

00:07:30.740 And then we'd go to break, they'd have to throw to break,

00:07:33.120 they'd come back, they'd do some out of town scores,

00:07:35.500 we'd throw back to break, they'd come back,

00:07:37.080 they'd do a highlight pack from an out of town game

00:07:39.620 that we had built and given them a script for.

00:07:42.320 And then we would finish and we'd have recorded them

00:07:45.160 And then we'd look back.

00:07:46.940 And so we're working with the guys, you know, okay, stand by.

00:07:50.960 We're going to break now.

00:07:51.880 You can go to break in 10, 9.

00:07:53.340 We're counting them through just like producers do.

00:07:56.640 And then Ron sat down.

00:07:58.700 And Ron was just like he'd been doing this for 20 years.

00:08:03.940 He was so relaxed and so calm and so confident.

00:08:08.760 And he'd say something wrong and he'd go, oh, sorry about that.

00:08:12.600 But here's what I meant.

00:08:13.480 And he carries on, whereas everybody else would get flustered,

00:08:16.480 and you could see them.

00:08:17.300 A couple of the guys, you could literally see the sweat coming down.

00:08:20.520 And Ron was just like he'd been doing it forever.

00:08:22.640 And I remember I looked at John, and John looked at me and go,

00:08:25.440 I know we have to finish this, but we're done, right?

00:08:27.840 And he goes, yeah.

00:08:29.140 And that was it.

00:08:30.220 That was it.

00:08:31.040 That Ron was in.

00:08:33.680 But in the last few years, as great as Ron is and the legacy he has,

00:08:38.440 he's had some stumbles.

00:08:39.680 What was Ron's weakness or maybe his ultimate downfall towards the end of his career?

00:08:46.980 So I think the issue started with Ron.

00:08:51.560 There was one year, and I don't have it in front of me.

00:08:53.760 I'm going to say 20, 25 years ago.

00:08:56.480 He and Don either held out or couldn't agree on money with CBC at the start of the season.

00:09:02.620 And there was a huge hue and cry from hockey viewership saying, oh, my God, we can't do this without Ron and Don.

00:09:09.680 And then they came back.

00:09:12.260 And I think when that happens, your head kind of goes and just gets a little bit bigger.

00:09:20.380 And unless you have a production team that says, no, we're going to stay in our lane.

00:09:26.540 We're not going to believe everything we read.

00:09:30.260 We're going to stay right here.

00:09:32.300 Unless somebody governs that, people will do what they're allowed to do.

00:09:38.120 And I think that was the start of the issue, because I found at the end, Ron wasn't in his lane.

00:09:46.540 Ron was in every lane on the roadway.

00:09:49.500 And I don't, that's never been a host role to me.

00:09:52.760 I've watched a million, I've been a sports television fan since the 1960s.

00:09:57.380 I've watched every host do their job.

00:09:59.720 Brent Musburger, Jim Nance, Bob Costas, you name it.

00:10:03.860 There's a lane that you need to stay in to be a good host.

00:10:07.840 and unfortunately ron lost sight of that lane and that that led to other other issues that's just my

00:10:16.000 opinion but that's what i see i think that's a brilliant way to put it steve on your excellent

00:10:21.360 social media feed you wrote something the other day that shocked me and i've been doing this for

00:10:26.400 a long time and i didn't know this now most canadians don't know this from 1952 to 1998

00:10:33.600 Hockey Night in Canada was not produced by the CBC.

00:10:37.620 Explain to everyone who exactly produced the show

00:10:40.100 for such a long period of time.

00:10:43.100 It's funny, I knew you were gonna say that

00:10:44.580 when you said I posted something,

00:10:45.840 I said he's gonna mention CSN.

00:10:47.700 So McLaren Advertising was in at the very beginning

00:10:51.880 of Hockey Night in TV.

00:10:53.360 Advertising company associated with Molson,

00:10:56.500 they had another company called Intergroup Advertising,

00:10:59.400 but McLaren ended up forming a TV arm

00:11:03.260 called Canadian Sports Network, CSN.

00:11:06.980 So if you, if I had a show from,

00:11:10.380 the Leafs used to be on CHCH in the mid eighties,

00:11:14.380 their midweek shows.

00:11:16.420 If I had a show and I could plunk it in,

00:11:18.860 it started with the following

00:11:21.040 is a Canadian Sports Network production

00:11:23.240 and the logo would flip in association with CHCH TV.

00:11:27.600 Well, there were about 20 people who worked for CSN

00:11:31.180 And that was the production arm of McLaren Advertising.

00:11:36.500 Ralph Mellenby didn't work for CBC, he worked for CSN.

00:11:39.860 Don Wallace, our executive producer of Midweek

00:11:42.060 didn't work for CBC, he worked for CSN.

00:11:45.040 We all worked for Canadian Sports Network.

00:11:47.800 In 1986, CSN got sold to Don Ohlmeyer

00:11:52.960 and became Ohlmeyer Communications,

00:11:55.420 following as an Ohlmeyer Communications production

00:11:57.780 in association with ITV in Edmonton.

00:12:00.800 and then it became Molestar Communications.

00:12:03.740 And Molestar was around for about 10 years.

00:12:06.340 CBC is still not producing Hockey Night.

00:12:09.800 And then in 1998, I think CBC woke up and went,

00:12:13.340 wait a minute, we can produce this.

00:12:16.520 We don't need these people to produce this.

00:12:19.160 Unfortunately, what they didn't realize was that all of us

00:12:21.960 who worked for CSN did one thing.

00:12:25.100 We produced hockey.

00:12:26.700 We didn't do track and field.

00:12:28.160 We didn't do figure skating.

00:12:29.900 we did hockey and i think that was a bit of a stumble in the whole mechanism towards hockey

00:12:36.620 night in canada not being around anymore that would be one of the first steps to me

00:12:41.660 but for years and years and years csn produced all those shows and steve i'm glad you brought

00:12:48.060 that up because as a broadcaster i feel there's a nuance to how you call a hockey game how you

00:12:54.060 shoot it how you produce it how you come in out of commercials what to show what not to show

00:12:59.260 that is very unique to hockey especially at that nhl level oh man we could do two hours on this

00:13:05.580 so the thing that i was aware of at the time now i'm young i'm in my early 20s i was aware of it

00:13:11.660 at the time i'm really aware of it now we were it's like hockey was a vat of water and we were

00:13:20.220 immersed in that vat of water i bet you 10 minutes jim didn't go by in a day when we didn't talk

00:13:26.780 about hockey either to our spouse to our friends to the people we work with think about that for

00:13:32.780 a minute yeah that is full immersion into hockey broadcasting and we used to talk about the smallest

00:13:41.740 smallest things about uh bob cole would always go long let's say into break uh you know and and

00:13:49.740 they'd get seven counts into break so we're going to break in seven six and that would be for him to

00:13:54.140 to say, the Oilers are up three to one,

00:13:56.020 we'll be back to the Met Center in Minnesota

00:13:57.640 right after this, and Coley would go long.

00:14:00.180 And so John Shannon would say, Bob,

00:14:02.500 I'm gonna give you a shorter count

00:14:05.260 and I need you to be done earlier.

00:14:06.620 So instead of a seven, you're gonna get a four.

00:14:09.200 And they were just these little nuanced things

00:14:12.100 that we would do because we did so many hockey games.

00:14:17.100 In 1986, I counted, I took 230 flights

00:14:21.060 around North America.

00:14:22.500 In 1986 alone, yes, because we're doing a game here

00:14:27.440 and then we're going there.

00:14:28.580 I remember we'd do a game in Edmonton.

00:14:30.780 We'd fly back to Calgary in the morning,

00:14:33.440 do scripts, rundowns and everything,

00:14:35.480 fly back to Edmonton that night and do a game the next day

00:14:39.020 because it was before internet

00:14:40.620 and you couldn't email stuff and things like that.

00:14:43.520 But the amount of hockey we did was so intense.

00:14:49.800 There was no minute of any day.

00:14:51.940 We weren't thinking about it or acting on it,

00:14:54.580 and that made a difference in the broadcast everybody else saw at home.

00:14:59.840 That's incredible.

00:15:01.200 Steve, I know for years Hockey Night in Canada and the powers that be

00:15:05.800 knew that Don Cherry was getting up there in years,

00:15:09.360 and then he got into his 80s,

00:15:10.880 and they still put him out there every Saturday night.

00:15:12.860 Now, any relative I've had in their 80s loses their filter.

00:15:17.240 Why did they not try to groom the next person,

00:15:21.100 The next Don Cherry and have a graceful, you know, proper exit and then have someone else come in to carry the mantle.

00:15:29.160 Why did they not do that?

00:15:30.940 Okay, I'm going to give you three things.

00:15:32.140 Number one, I'm not sure there is a next Don Cherry.

00:15:34.940 I'm not sure that's possible.

00:15:36.520 Number two, they made one really, really big mistake with Don.

00:15:41.500 The first time Don talked about anything that wasn't the National Hockey League or the American League or the International League or Major Junior, the producer should have said, Don, don't you ever talk about anything but hockey again.

00:16:00.720 If you want to go on a podcast with your son, Tim, producing and you want to talk about a million things, you go right ahead.

00:16:06.400 this is called hockey night in Canada and that's what we're going to talk about but nobody did

00:16:13.000 that to Don and Don was allowed to do things that Don should never have been allowed to say

00:16:18.240 or do and I feel I really do feel bad in my heart for Don because Don did what he thought was best

00:16:27.080 and he had nobody saying to him no you can't do that we're not we're not gonna that's not

00:16:32.360 going to happen. You have to get off that track and you have to focus on hockey. And I feel for

00:16:39.700 him because I think he was allowed to do things he never should have been allowed to do. You're

00:16:43.780 right. You get a little bit older, you get confident. This gets a little bigger. I feel

00:16:49.500 bad for him, but I think it was inevitable once they allowed him to start down that path where

00:16:54.640 he could talk about things that weren't hockey. And Steve, I'm convinced it was all because

00:16:59.760 of the revenue and the ratings that Coach's Corner was pulling in.

00:17:03.560 It was becoming, I would go to a sports bar if I wasn't working,

00:17:07.440 and they would turn the volume up because that's what it was.

00:17:12.200 Oh, yeah.

00:17:12.880 Oh, yeah, Don's on.

00:17:13.780 Everybody quiet.

00:17:14.540 Don's on.

00:17:15.500 And, again, that's going to affect Don.

00:17:18.180 Now, he was bombastic from the beginning.

00:17:19.960 Like, I don't know if you've noticed, we all wore the powder blue baby blue jacket.

00:17:25.480 Don never even had one.

00:17:27.420 I'm not wearing that.

00:17:28.860 I'm not wearing that.

00:17:29.760 So there's group photos of us at seminars, and we're all wearing the blue jacket,

00:17:34.840 and Dawn's wearing this yellow and black plaid thing that has nothing to do with what we're wearing.

00:17:42.480 So Dawn was always a bit of a unique character.

00:17:45.660 And you're right.

00:17:47.040 Once you start to read your own reviews, look out.

00:17:50.160 You're going to become a bit of a different person.

00:17:52.400 And that did happen to him over time.

00:17:54.460 I think Ralph did a really good job of reining him in.

00:17:57.080 But when Ralph left Hockey Night in Canada, he retired in 1985 to go and do the Calgary Olympics and some other things.

00:18:03.700 Don started to become a different person.

00:18:05.640 It's always a slow build.

00:18:07.340 And Don was a slow build, too.

00:18:10.360 Steve, I'm a big fan of Kevin Bieksa.

00:18:12.700 I've dealt with him, you know, away from the cameras.

00:18:15.880 I think he's a first-class person.

00:18:17.360 I think he's an excellent broadcaster and really brings a lot to the broadcast itself.

00:18:21.440 will we ever see a time where they'll just have a host and kevin bx and not four or five talking

00:18:28.300 heads during an intermission because i just kind of like to hear what he'd have to say

00:18:32.100 with a host and just have them a back and forth isn't that funny you know um people have asked me

00:18:39.060 you know how would you configure that intermission how would you and i one of the first things i

00:18:43.300 always say is i would seriously consider kevin bx as the host because i think he i yeah i think he

00:18:50.480 could do it he wouldn't have to stay in his lane because now his lane is quite a bit wider because

00:18:55.320 now he has this body of expertise but I think he could do it and I think it would be it's happened

00:19:00.960 before I mean Pat Summerall was a football player in the National Football League then he became a

00:19:05.400 broadcaster he became a host then he did golf all those types of things so it's been done before

00:19:09.960 but I'm with you I think there's a real knack and some people have it most don't to recognizing when

00:19:18.340 somebody has an innate ability to do something and you're right i think kevin thinks quickly

00:19:24.500 i think he's very smart he's got a bit of an edge which i love i love a bit of an edge and he could

00:19:30.980 and he also understands what the role is and i think he could do that absolutely but you're right

00:19:37.460 i think he's a good um a good analyst in a good spot when he's in the studio there i i look at the

00:19:46.020 future, not just of hockey broadcasting, Steve, but broadcasting. We're seeing baseball games,

00:19:51.420 the Blue Jays on Apple TV. Now in the national football league, you need to have five or six

00:19:56.620 streaming services to watch sports. It's the old way of watching football and CBS on Sunday and

00:20:03.780 hockey on CBC and the Blue Jays on CTV. And that's how it was. It's gone and it's gone forever. I

00:20:09.860 mean, I don't know where it's going to go. Do you have an idea where it's going to go for the next

00:20:14.060 10 years no absolutely not it you're right it's becoming so fractured and so fragmented and you're

00:20:21.460 right like if i want to watch the buffalo bills like how am i watching the buffalo bills this

00:20:25.660 weekend like yeah you actually have to do research you have to do research now instead of just flick

00:20:30.680 it onto channel six and that's it there it is um i think that's what's listen you and i both know

00:20:37.760 money drives everything money's gonna drive that if they can you know one off a show on a on a

00:20:44.360 network um or that you know look what's going to happen to the cfl with the zone and and the games

00:20:50.200 are not going to be on their games are not going to be on tsn and i just thought you know it's

00:20:55.540 starting to become normalized which i don't love but that's what's happening and you're actually

00:20:59.940 going to have to do research to figure out how to watch this game but it's it's all about money

00:21:04.700 and until that changes, it's not going to change.

00:21:08.880 I just want to bring up something towards the end here, Steve,

00:21:12.180 something you wrote, and I think it's so perfect,

00:21:14.300 encapsulates the last few weeks for Canadians.

00:21:18.380 Everyone's memories of Hockey Night Canada are untouchable.

00:21:21.280 That is important to remember as Canada directs their anger

00:21:24.560 towards Rodgers and the end of NHL hockey and the CBC,

00:21:28.160 and I thought it was a good reminder.

00:21:30.400 Those memories I had with my late father watching Hockey Night,

00:21:34.240 watching it with my kids, seeing tears streaming down players' face

00:21:38.500 when they grab the Stanley Cup and the big moments and the milestones.

00:21:42.980 They'll be with me forever, and I'm glad you pointed that out, Steve.

00:21:46.640 It's not going anywhere.

00:21:48.280 I mean, in the late 60s, I remember watching our black and white

00:21:51.720 and the Leafs were playing, and Bruce Gamble was playing goal for the Leafs,

00:21:55.840 and apparently, I don't remember this, I would mimic every great save that he made

00:22:00.820 because I just, I loved hockey on TV so much.

00:22:05.340 I remember the 1970s Stanley Cup final.

00:22:08.340 I remember what, and then to have been part of it to me

00:22:11.660 is just insane.

00:22:13.520 I just, I can't imagine that I got to be part of it

00:22:17.480 and part of the fabric.

00:22:19.480 I mean, I'll be honest with you.

00:22:20.880 I'm sitting in Waterton, Alberta right now.

00:22:23.820 I came down from breakfast to talk to you.

00:22:26.700 The last thing we talked about at breakfast

00:22:28.820 was how great Wayne Gretzky was.

00:22:30.820 And I said, well, when I come back upstairs after this interview, I'll tell you a little bit about Wayne Gretzky.

00:22:36.800 And they're like, no, no, stop. Tell us now. Tell us.

00:22:39.340 I said, I can't. I have to go. I have to talk to Jim Lang.

00:22:42.420 They're like, no, no. And I know they're up there right now waiting for me to come back up.

00:22:47.660 So it's so in our fabric in Canada. They cannot take that away.

00:22:53.220 It can't be done. But unfortunately, it's going to recede into the past.

00:22:58.040 and that makes me more than a little sad you know and a few years ago i wrote a book called

00:23:03.800 my day with the cup about what players did with their day with the stanley cup and part of that

00:23:08.100 a lot of the players was before they got the cup was the photo on the ice and for people don't

00:23:13.640 realize it was 1988 wayne gretzky he started the tradition of the photo of the team in the

00:23:20.160 stanley cup and i can remember bob cole i get chills thinking about it wayne my boy you know

00:23:25.300 And with his that the voice that one of the great voices in broadcasting, you know, Wayne, my boy, there was no greater compliment.

00:23:32.740 You enjoy it all the players around him. And, you know, that that's still it's as fresh now as it was in the spring of 1988.

00:23:40.180 Steve, Bob Cole was a character. I'll tell you a quick Bob Cole story.

00:23:44.800 So I'm doing stats in Edmonton. I'm doing stats. And this is the first game I met Bob Cole.

00:23:49.840 It's probably December 1979. I'm 17 years old.

00:23:55.300 Bob comes in, sits down beside me.

00:23:58.540 He's got a black cigarette holder, this long, with a cigarette on it.

00:24:03.440 And it's, of course, he holds it on this side.

00:24:05.240 So, I mean, literally, it's like right here for the whole game for me.

00:24:08.620 He undoes his pants.

00:24:10.840 He loosens his pants.

00:24:12.620 And you probably know all this.

00:24:14.260 He undoes the top of his pants so he can sit comfy in the chair.

00:24:18.480 And it gets his diaphragm going, right?

00:24:20.400 I guess it does.

00:24:22.500 So the game starts and something happens and the Oilers score and it's Curry from Gretzky

00:24:29.440 and Fogel and so I'm doing the stats so I write down 17 bracket 99 bracket 2 bracket

00:24:36.160 418 time of the goal and I put it right here beside him and he's like and now here's Lumley

00:24:44.420 in the corner and he's moving out and he hasn't given the scoring play.

00:24:47.340 so all i do all i do i swear to you is i just touch his left arm oh no oh yeah you touched him

00:24:56.440 so i touched his left arm so he finishes in oh and the whistle the puck's out of play and

00:25:03.680 we'll be back right after this commercial break and he takes his headset off and he looks at me

00:25:08.880 and he's i'm not gonna swear but he did he said kid don't touch me don't be effing touching me

00:25:16.900 don't touch me ever again turns back puts it now i'm sitting there and i am literally like it's

00:25:24.820 going like this i am shaking so oh my god and i'll never forget it and i think john shannon was in

00:25:31.980 the truck and he said what's going on up there and i'm like nothing john we just solved the problem

00:25:36.860 it's been solved it won't happen again don't worry about it buddy oh my god so that was bob

00:25:44.260 bob cole in a little nutshell there that guy i've never seen more energy in a guy in my whole life

00:25:51.860 no he and and that's for me um these giants these icons these titans of broadcasting

00:25:58.660 who came up with the powder blue jackets and the host and the interviews and the hockey night in

00:26:03.460 canada towel and that and um you know i get a little emotional thinking about it because

00:26:08.260 and i grew up with it and then i became a broadcaster and i was telling some of the

00:26:12.340 of the day Steve I remember covering my first Leafs training camp at Maple Leaf Gardens in

00:26:16.620 September 95 and Hockey Night in Canada showed up to do some feature interviews and it was like the

00:26:21.760 Red Sea parted with all the other reporters because we were in awe of Hockey Night coming

00:26:26.180 in to do their features to get ready for the season it was unbelievable and you know we tried

00:26:31.560 a lot of us tried not to let our heads get too big because it kind of was like that we were royalty

00:26:38.600 walking in, but we just try to, we just have this job to do. We just want to focus on our job

00:26:43.720 and do the best job we can. But I remember looking around and seeing people looking at us like,

00:26:50.900 wow, you guys know how, like, this is a big deal. We did know, but we're like, we just tried to be

00:26:57.780 one of the group. But yeah, when you walk in on those jackets, you're kind of a target for people

00:27:03.000 to say oh wow hockey night's here this must be a big deal yeah yeah it is it's some of my great

00:27:10.280 memories getting to know Ron and Don getting to know Bob Cole and Harry Neal and you know even

00:27:16.160 though I was at different networks and different broadcast outlets Steve I can't thank you enough

00:27:20.660 for bringing the insight to this and you can go back and tell your Wayne Gretzky story but

00:27:25.060 it's it's greatly appreciated I thank you my friend you're very welcome Jim great to talk to

00:27:30.820 Likewise.

00:28:00.820 Safety is our top priority. Shop now at lesslethal.ca.

True Patriot Love - July 02, 2026

The Death of Hockey Night In Canada ft. Steve Lansky

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