There are three NHL teams in California, and they are doing reasonably well in their division, and at the box office – the LA Kings sell out every game, and both Anaheim and San Jose run at 95 per cent capacity.
Not bad for ice hockey in a highly-competitive pro sports market, where the competition for loyalty, and the dollars that go with it, is fierce.
But I was hard-pressed to find any mention of the World Junior Hockey Championships when I was in southern California, and that was on in Canada. Not in the newspapers, not in the coffee shops, not on TV. Not a word, even though the USA team did exceptionally well in the round-robin games, and won the event.
That called for desperate measures: listen to the final game online on TSN Radio. I can tell you, it has literally been years since I’ve listened to a hockey game, or any game, on radio. But it brought back a healthy measure of respect for the play-by-play announcers who have the unenviable task of describing a fast-paced game with words as their only tool.
And it brought back memories are of one such man with who I had the pleasure, and the fun, of working for two seasons of Yorkton Terrier senior hockey back in the late 1960s.
The Terriers were a hardened group of pro and semi-pro players on their way out, and a few wannabe pros trying to make a name for themselves.
Some are still around today: Merve Kuryluk, Gerry James, Jerry Bulitz, Ken Atkinson, Barry Sharpe, Rene Berthelette, Vern Pachal, to name a few. Others like Barrie Ross (a playing coach for two seasons), Billy Prystai, and Marcel Mongrain (who was one of the younger and faster players) are no longer with us.
Calling the games on CJGX back then was Jim Keilback, who is also still around, having celebrated his 90th birthday last fall, and living in Regina with his daughter. Four of us would climb the long stairway to the broadcast booth that used to hang on the south wall of the old area on Front Street, where the ball diamonds are today.
Jim did the play-by-play, Dave Adams did the colour commentary, Staff Sgt. Leo Lynch selected the three stars, and yours truly, a rookie reporter with the old Yorkton Enterprise, kept the stats and did the period and game summaries.
That arena was one cold place in mid winter, alleviated somewhat in later years by gas-fired radiant heaters above the stands, donated by George Morris. But there was no heat in the broadcast booth, other than what came with us in small flasks. Some of that may have impeded my ability to get the players’ names right, but Jim’s rapid-fire never-miss-a-pass play calling never missed a beat.
Lorne Harasen, who was born in Kamsack and spent time at GX before a long career as a radio phone-in show host in Regina (remember The Harasen Line? If only John Gormley was that good) calls Jim one of the finest play-by-play announcers ever in the business.
Jim’s son Curt followed the old man into the business, did sports at GX, called the games for the original Winnipeg Jets, and moved with the team to Arizona, staying with the Coyotes until 2007. He is now back in Winnipeg, is in the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, and has done a bit of acting in movies.
By the way, one other notable play-by-play announcer passed through Yorkton on his way up: Chris Cuthbert (TSN football, NBC hockey) spend time doing sports at CKOS-CICC TV, although you won’t find that mentioned anywhere in his official online biographies.
Good memories, but I don’t miss that cold, cold arena. Or the internal warming elixir.
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