Many old-time Canadian hockey fans should be able to remember Phil Esposito's interview after the Canadians trailed the Soviet Union 2-1-1 after game four in Vancouver.
Esposito announced to the nation that he was disappointed with the way they have been treated. That seemed to spark Canada and they went on to win the 1972 Summit Series series 4-3-1 with the final four games in Russia.
And who did that famous nationally televised interview with Esposito? North Battleford's own Johnny Esaw.
Esaw was a sports broadcaster and television network executive after getting his broadcasting career started with CJNB radio and covering semi-professional baseball games in and around the Battlefords in the late 1940s.
"It was baseball that he got involved with and that started his career," said Jane Shury president and CEO of the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Don Hillsendager, another Battlefords sports historian of the North Battleford Sports Museum and Hall of Fame recalled Emile Francis asking Esaw to broadcast games for $5.
From there he went on to become one of the country's most recognizable broadcasters.
Esaw moved onto a bigger market in Regina and continued to move up the ranks and eventually become the voice of the Canadian Football League. In the 1960s Esaw moved to television and was the sports director of CFTO-TV, which was Toronto's first privately owned TV station. Esaw was instrumental in national and international figure skating events being broadcast. He negotiated the rights to the 1972 Summit Series and the 1964 Winter Olympic Games along with the several other Olympic events.
He moved on to become the vice-president of CTV Sports before retiring from there in 1990. Esaw worked for six more years with the Houston Group and worked on other sporting events such at golf, tennis and motor sports until he was 71.
"He has been everywhere with almost every sport. The Battlefords are proud of him simply because he is a homegrown boy," said Shury.
Esaw's long list of honours includes chairman of the Air Canada Amateur Sports Awards, volunteer chairman of the Sports Marketing Council, selected Sportsman of the Year by the Jewish Community Centre of Toronto and is inducted into the Canadian Football Reporters Hall of Fame, Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, the Canadian Amateur Sports Hall of Fame, the CAB Broadcast Hall of Fame, the Canadian Figure Skating Hall of Fame. He was made a member of the Order of Canada and in 1992 he was one of three inaugural inductees into the North Battleford Sports Hall of Fame.Esaw attend King Street School and NBCI and also played junior hockey before a leg injury forced him to pursue sports in a new direction. He also worked as sports editor as The Optimist.
Esaw passed away Saturday in Toronto at the age of 87.
