Trebek, Meeker were part of the soundtrack of our lives
I said hello to Alex Trebek once at a dinner in Los Angeles but never really met him.
It was at the 1981 NHL All-Star game, my first year covering the Calgary Flames, their first year after moving from Atlanta. The stars of that all-star season were named Gretzky and Messier, Bossy and Trottier.
Trebek was kind of a nobody back then. He had just left Canada, where he was host of the high school quiz show, Reach for the Top, and he was about to begin hosting a game show that didn't last very long, a few game shows before he landed Jeopardy and became a living legend.
That was the only time I can remember seeing Alex Trebek in person. But when he died on Sunday, I felt like I lost a friend, a member of the family, a face and a voice I'd seemingly known forever.
When the pandemic began in March, my boys, now in their
30s, decided to move home. We spent the first 150 days together, had more meals together, more conversations, more time together than at any other time in our adult lives, and we had one daily
custom.
At 7:30 p.m., we gathered for Jeopardy. The four of us. We would sit in the same place, shout out the answers, always in question form, and see who would beat whom. Some nights we'd watch a second Jeopardy, one from the past, if we needed more answers and more Trebek.
And then we'd separate. The end of Jeopardy was the signal that our day together was over.
On Sunday, I got a text from each of my sons. One telling me that Trebek had died. The other saying: No more Jeopardy.
The year I said hello to Trebek happened to also come in the same hockey season I first met Howie Meeker. The Flames played their first NHL game in Calgary against the Quebec Nordiques. It was the first game for Peter Stastny after the defection, and the first for Dale Hunter.
Jim Robson did the play-by-play. Howie was the colour man.
Colour was the perfect description for Meeker. He was boundless energy, full of crazy cliches and “golly gees” and smiles and kindness, and just about the youngest, most energetic 57-year-old ever born.
He bounced at the morning skates from sentence to sentence, from player to player, from broadcaster to broadcaster, spreading his wisdom and passions about hockey. He seemed to have time for everyone, especially the new kids on the hockey writing block. There was no one like him then. There's really been no one like him since.
He loved hockey and hockey loved him and he had time for every player and every fan and even us kids on the beat, learning our jobs on the go. We had watched Meeker for all those years teaching hockey on television, stopping it right there when he needed to make a point, understanding the simplicity and complexities of hockey all at the same time.
They died on the same day, Meeker at 97, Trebek at 80.
They couldn't have been more different: Trebek so smooth, so calming, Meeker talking like a jumping bean, his enthusiasm grabbing you and pulling you along for the ride.
These are the voices of your life, certainly my life, depending on your age and your thoughts and your passions. Every house is different, every TV, every radio, has a different sound, style, individual viewing patterns. It's a personal thing, what becomes the soundtrack of your life. The voices that matter. The sounds that are most welcoming and comforting and that, like a great old song, take you back to another place.
The sounds of Alex Trebek and Howie Meeker. They're gone now. And a piece of our lives, with thankful memories, goes with them.