Iconic CBC Sportscaster Bob Cole Dies at 90

[MichMash]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfound ... -1.7184556

The 50-year voice of "Hockey Night in Canada" passed away April 24 at his home in Newfoundland.

CBC's Saturday night HNIC coverage in the late '70s was my introduction to hockey, since local TV coverage of the lousy Red Wings was so spotty in comparison. By then, Foster Hewitt was already retired and Danny Gallivan handled mostly Canadiens games, so Bob Cole doing the Leafs on Saturdays "from the gondola at Maple Leaf Gardens" was the voice that introduced me to the game. During the Red Wings' run up to renewed playoff greatness in the late '90s, I greatly enjoyed hearing his goal calls whenever CBC did a Wings playoff series, with his accented pronunciation of "De-TROY-it".

[SteveS]

Always enjoyed his work. I went with a friend to Dallas for games 1 and 2 of the Western Conference Finals against the Red Wings in 1998. I saw him walking by himself to Reunion Arena so we said hello, but he shut us down quickly with something like, "Guys, I don't have time for this." My friend and I just looked at each other thinking, "wow." All we did was say hello. We had no intention of asking for a photo, autograph, etc. No worries, though. We figured he was probably just in a zone getting ready to call the game and hopefully not like that all the time.

RIP

[Honeyman]

See, ya' hear a story like Steve's and I'll forever think of this guy as an asshole. Ernie Harwell and Vin Scully were the 2 best to ever do play-by-play. And you never heard anyone say a bad word about either of them.