The Booth

Hero Worship: Danny Gallivan

As a kid back home in Campbellton, New Brunswick, I loved listening to Danny Gallivan.

Who didn't?

Sunday nights, I'd be by the radio without fail. I don't remember whether or not I had an interest in play-by-play before that, but listening to Danny Gallivan certainly acted as a spark.

I actually played the game until bantam level. That's when the forwards were allowed to start unloading slapshots and when I began to understand I wasn't a very good goalie.

It's also when I realized I could talk faster than I could move and things sort of went from there.

I actually got into broadcasting calling local softball games, doing the public address announcing for the Riverside Park Senior Softball League. Four teams. That's how it began, phoning in reports and going into the station. My last year of high school, the station manager asked me if I wanted to do the sports during the morning run, around 6:30 am to 8:15 or 8:30. Then I'd go to school, come back to the station, and do the afternoon run.

A natural progression, I graduated to calling hockey games in the winter, in the old North Shore League.

That's when I began to really listen to the guys calling the games. Danny Gallivan was always my favorite. In those days, Foster Hewitt was the voice of the Leafs and I liked Foster. But Danny was the play-by-play guy I admired most.

Danny injected real excitement to his announcing. I know you get people from Toronto to this day who'll tell you Danny was partisan to the Canadiens, but I always felt he called a fair broadcast.

The fact he was from the Maritimes, like me, didn't hurt my enjoyment of his calls. I felt a connection there, for sure.

The winter of 1976, I sent him a tape of one of my hockey broadcasts. I'd met him previously though a friend of mine who was a policeman in Montreal, when I was there for an Expos game. I was sort of in awe and I didn't say much, but I did summon up enough courage to ask him if I could mail him my tape. He said sure and gave me the address.

A while later I received a letter giving me some advice on my tape, which was great.

Then in June of 1977, he came to Campbellton for a hockey banquet as a guest speaker. The dinner was held in the basement of the St. Thomas Aquinas Church. I was in the audience like everybody else and in the course of Danny's speech, he said, "There's someone in this room who all of you know well who's not going to be here very much longer. He's too good a broadcaster."

Then he mentioned my name.

A shout-out from Danny Gallivan!

It was a big, big thrill, obviously.

As fate would have it, three months later I wound up going to Toronto to broadcast Maple Leafs games.

I'm happy Danny was on to something there.

Mentors and Tricks of the Trade

Through my formative years developing into a broadcaster, I was lucky enough to count any number of people generous enough to guide me. That started, naturally, back in my hometown, Campbellton, New Brunswick, and Dalhousie, 16 miles away.

Guys like Doug Young, the radio station manager who got me involved in the business to start with. Doug had done some hockey play-by-play himself, which made him a valuable resource. Bud Dow, who I listened to and talked to. Veteran broadcasters like Don Hume, host on our broadcasts.

I also did a lot of writing in those days for local newspapers, which put me in contact with old pros Eddie St. Pierre in Moncton and Bill Donovan in Saint John, both very helpful, as well as Al and John Anslow with the weekly Campbellton Graphic.

I learned a lot from Gerry "Red" Ouellette, a former 12-year professional who played in 34 games with Boston in the 1960s. He came to my hometown in 1971 to coach the senior-intermediate team, the Tigers, and taught me an awful lot about professionalism.

Listening to the greats of the era, Danny Gallivan, Foster Hewitt, and Bob Cole certainly helped whet my appetite and provided me with inspiration and instruction.

When I move to Toronto to begin my NHL career, I was pretty raw but helped along by people like Dave Ruskin, the general manager of CKO Radio Network, who hired me. He was someone who had a lot of history with the CBC on the news side and always had great tips. Ralph Mellanby, the long-time producer of Hockey Night in Canada, was part of the selection group that gave me a chance.

HNIC producer Jim Hough took me under his wing and helped get me acclimatized. I can't forget Brian MacFarlane and Dave Hodge on the TV side of things, John Iaboni and Frank Orr from the print media.

In my years in Toronto, guys such as John Shannon, Doug Beeforth, and Rick Briggs-Jude were basically runners on HNIC telecasts while attending Ryerson's broadcasting course. They would, of course, go on to become outstanding producers and directors at various levels. John, after being involved in production, is now an on-air commentator on Rogers Sportsnet.

As I was making my way and improving my broadcasts, I picked up tricks such as talking in the present tense when you're doing play-by-play. In other words, you don't say, "He shot the puck into the corner." You say, "He shoots the puck into the corner." Another valuable piece of advice was, when making a comment I wasn't 100 percent certain of, to say "I believe" rather than "I think."

They also were very helpful in drumming home that it's vital to follow the puck, to continually let the listening audience on radio know who has the puck and where it is on the ice, be it in the corner, in the neutral zone, at the blueline, etc.

Other important points:

• Keep the broadcast as conversational as possible, directed to the listener and not my colour commentator. I was also advised to concentrate solely on the game itself until I started feeling more at ease, and then to start working in some research into my broadcasts.

• Allow the fans do some of the work. If the Flames, say, scored at home in the Saddledome, identify the player, give the score itself, and then stop talking. Let the crowd noise in the building fill in for you for a few seconds. Give the radio listener the feeling they were there, in the rink, sharing the experience with the fans in the seats. I'd advise my colour commentators of this over the years, signaling by raising an arm in the air to briefly stay silent before talking about the goal.

• Not to "step on" the colour commentator or let him do the same to me. By that I mean don't talk at the same time. That's immensely irritating to an audience. I like to think over the years we did a pretty job of delivering a clean broadcast. When the play-by-play was on, I was on. When I stopped talking, either Doug Barkley, Mike Rogers, or Peter Loubardias — the three colour sidekicks over the course of my Flames career — would have a few seconds to jump in and comment. If they felt something was immediately pertinent during the play-by-play, all they had to do was give a little tap on the arm as a signal.

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