For 50 years, Bob Cole has been the soundtrack of Canadian hockey

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For generations of Canadians, Bob Cole was more than just a play-by-play voice. hockey night in canada. He was a conductor and a maestro, and his unique tone and rhythm contained all the hope and magic and derangement of the big game.

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It wasn't a voice. It was the soundtrack.

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Cole died Wednesday at the age of 90 in St. John's, New Jersey, surrounded by his family. It's been five years since he called his last game from the booth, the season finale between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens on April 6, 2019.

He never wanted to retire.

“I don't want to think about that day,” he said in a 2013 interview. national post office. “One time someone asked me, 'Have you ever thought about retiring?' And I said, 'So why are you asking me that?'” I'm in the job I wanted. ” ”

Who was Bob Cole?

Bob Cole grew up in St. John's and reached his teens before Newfoundland entered the Confederation in 1949. His father was the warden at the local prison. “They had a really tough clientele as prisoners,” Cole once said. “Some people have been doing it for a long time.”

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A lot happened before he became the most famous. Cole was a national-level curler. In 1971 and 1975, he also skipped the Newfoundland rink competing for the Canadian championship at the Brier. (His team didn't advance to the playoff round, but still won five games in two trips.)

But for 50 years, Bob Cole was all about hockey.

When he walked into the Toronto office, he was just 23 years old and had nothing but the confidence of youth and a demo tape. While his friends waited outside in their cars, he was granted a surprise audience with personal hero and sportscasting pioneer Foster Hewitt.

Hewitt had a technician play the tape. He spoke with Cole for another 90 minutes, offering advice that shaped his career. He has one piece of advice. Choose your voice from his four levels in-game and use your voice like an instrument to play along with the action on the ice below.

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What made him famous?

It was his voice, sure, but it was also his rhythm. Every Canadian of a certain age is sure to be friends with someone who was once extremely confident in their Bob Cole impression. Things like goal calls (high-pitched “Score!”), pacing, etc…maybe little things like this.

At his best, Cole worked in both science and art. His catchphrase was repeated at street hockey games across the country. (In 2015, with the help of a longtime CBC producer, Cole launched an app filled with his own readings.)

“How about that?”

“Hold on to your hat.”

“Oh baby”

There were many others, but none as famous as the last one.

“It's either surprising or sudden or climactic,” Cole said in 2013. It's “Oh baby”. ”

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What was his big moment?

Cole took the first big step in his career in 1969 by calling an NHL game (Montreal vs. Boston) and moved up from there. He was in the booth in Moscow when Paul Henderson scored a generation-defining goal to defeat the Soviet Union in the 1972 Summit Series. He made the call on the radio while his idol Hewitt made the more famous call on television.

Cole moved into the television world soon after, and didn't leave for decades. In 1976, he was in the booth when the Soviets briefly left the ice during a heated exhibition game against the Philadelphia Flyers (“They're Going Home”).

he became a staple of hockey night, worked on countless major games with Harry Neal as an analyst. (Cole was famous among TV people for the way he directed traffic in the booth. He held his hand up toward the analyst until he finished speaking. He also used a similar pose to refer to the football trophy “Heisman.”) ). )

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“Like many of the Broadway plays that Bob loves to go to, he knows that the end of scene one isn't as important as the finale, so he's going to use his voice accordingly.” John Shannon, a longtime television executive, wrote for Sportsnet in 2019. His sense of the moment is perfect. Bob should not be in the textbook. He's a textbook. ”

What else made him unique?

Sure, there was a “Heisman,” but there were also pants. In the broadcast booth on the ice, his voice reaching millions of Canadians, Cole was known to loosen his belt and pants during games.

It wasn't a legend. That was true.

Cole said in 2013, “When you listen to singers, sometimes they say you have to be able to breathe easily. I think it's easier when you have a belt around your waist and don't strangle you.” I don't want to do that. ”

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So everyone loved him?

In 1996, Cole received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award at the Hockey Hall of Fame. He was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada in his 2016 year. Two years ago, the Canadian Film and Television Academy honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

At times, some people were critical. In 2001, the mayor of Ottawa claimed that key staff members at the CBC, where Cole and Neal were stars, were biased. The mayor claimed that the voices on the TV were subtly rooting for Toronto to win against the local senator.

In an interview with national post office At the time, Neal denied such claims, saying, “And if that's not good enough for Ottawa, they can gobble up my a-.”

“That's funny to hear. When I walked into the office this morning, there was a fax on my desk. It basically said, 'There's a reason I can't say anything good about the Toronto Maple Leafs. ''' said executive producer Joel Darling at the time. post. “So we understand it from both sides.”

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Years later, Cole said with a laugh: “I was told years ago that no matter what I did, I would be criticized.”

What is Bob Cole's legacy?

In November 2013, when Rogers Communications announced a 12-year deal worth $5.2 billion for domestic exclusive rights to Canada's NHL, many familiar voices would be excluded as a new broadcast landscape takes shape. There was a concern that this might be the case.

Canadians have made their voices clear on the nascent social media platform.

Bob Cole will stay.

He signed a one-year contract and was announced seven months later. “I said, 'If I work hard enough, they'll ask me — I don't need to be promised five years or anything.'”

“He was the sound of hockey,'' he said for many years. hockey night host Ron MacLean told CBC on Thursday. “We can all kind of imagine his presence in the game.”

The call didn't just call the game. He brought the audience to the game.

“He knew he could bring people together,” MacLean told CBC. “He knew that broadcasting was really a bridge.”

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