Hockey play-by-play was born in Toronto 90 years ago
On Feb. 8, 1923, the North Toronto hockey club played host to Midland in an Ontario Hockey Association intermediate division playoff game. Fewer than 3,000 fans were at the 8,000-seat Mutual Street Arena in downtown Toronto that night.
Defenceman Lionel Conacher, who was already nationally famous as a multi-sport star and would be chosen Canada’s athlete of the half-century in 1950, scored six goals in North Toronto’s 16-4 victory.
Even with Conacher’s heroics that night, the game played 90 years ago would be long forgotten if not for the exploits of another man. He was not on the ice, nor even in the stands, but sitting inside a small glass booth built at the south end of the penalty timekeeper’s bench. This man was an employee of the Toronto Star, working that night for the newspaper’s radio station, CFCA. From inside that small glass booth some time after 9 p.m. — just before the start of the third period — he began hockey’s first live play-by-play broadcast.
“The announcer who described the play,” reported the Star’s radio column the following day, “was right by the side of the rink and as he spoke, his voice was shot into space.” It was, in fact, sent out by phone over the Bell Telephone wires from the Arena near Queen and Jarvis Sts. to the CFCA studio in the Star building at 18 King St. W, then amplified and transmitted over thousands of miles.
“The vivid description of Norman Albert,” reported the Star, “gave listeners the chance to mentally see the fast action.”
Norman Albert had worked for the Star since 1917. He was the secretary to managing editor John R. Bowen. “They settled on me [for the broadcast],” Albert told sports writer Dick Beddoes in 1973, “because in addition to my secretarial duties, I also did some sports reporting at night.” In fact, Albert wrote the story of the North Toronto-Midland game that appeared in the next day’s Star.
A typical broadcasting day for CFCA in 1923 began at noon with a weather report. From 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. there were agricultural reports, news and music. Closing stock market figures and late-day news were aired from 5:30 to 6 p.m. From 8 to 9 every evening, there was a live concert. Not surprisingly, the hockey broadcast proved a tremendously popular addition, so six days later, on Feb. 14, Albert was back at the Arena, this time for an NHL game involving the Toronto St. Pats and the Ottawa Senators. Albert was on the air at 9:45 p.m. with a recap of the first and second periods (future Hall of Famers Jack Adams, Reg Noble and Babe Dye had Toronto in front 5-1) followed by live play-by-play of the third. Listeners heard the St. Pats hold on for a 6-4 victory.
CFCA was on the air for at least 12 more live third-period broadcasts (including three other NHL games) over the next five weeks, Albert was on the air only two more times. Another Star employee named Foster Hewitt would take his place.
“It was a natural for Foster to go into broadcasting,” Albert told Beddoes. “He was the sports editor’s son and he didn’t do any harm.”
Hewitt, had, in fact, quit his job at the Canadian Independent Telephone Company to join the Star in 1922 when his father, W.A. Hewitt, told him about the newspaper’s plans to start a radio station. After months of writing for the radio column, lugging around equipment, and being host of orchestral broadcasts, Hewitt called his first hockey game on Feb. 16, 1923.
Hewitt would later recall the date of his first broadcast as March 22, 1923, but that was actually the date of CFCA’s final hockey broadcast that season. In comparing the details of the game on Feb. 16 to Hewitt’s recollections, it’s clear that this was the matchup he remembered. Tied 3-3 after the third, the game required four (not sudden death) five-minute overtime periods before the Toronto Argonauts emerged with a 5-3 victory over the Kitchener Greenshirts.
Hewitt’s broadcast of the game was described as “an epic” in the Star when he returned to the air the following week.
A legend was already in the making.
Hewitt would, of course, go on to a lifetime career in broadcasting. But what about Norman Albert? He remained with the Star until 1927 when the rival Toronto Telegram hired him and made him the financial editor. He left the newspaper business in 1950 to join an investment firm on Bay St. Albert was fairly well off when declining heath forced him into retirement in 1966. Sadly, Parkinson’s disease would leave the man who called hockey’s first live play-by-play broadcast barely able to speak when he passed away on Christmas Day at the age of 77 in 1974.
- Toronto's pro ultimate frisbee team might be a nice score for father and son