NBA PLAYOFFS
Bob Cole, a welcome voice for Canadian hockey fans for a half-century, has died at the age of 90. Cole died Wednesday night in St. John’s, N.L., surrounded by his family, his daughter, Megan Cole, told the CBC.
Born June 24, 1933, the St. John’s native provided a distinctive soundtrack to Canada’s game. He was known for his signature “Oh baby” call, an expression that was not restricted to hockey arenas.
“He’s been saying that around the house as long as I can remember,” Megan said in Cole’s 2016 autobiography “Now I’m Catching On. My Life On and Off the Air.”
Cole first remembers using it to describe some memorable Mario Lemieux stickhandling in Game 2 of the 1991 Stanley Cup final against Minnesota.
“Look at Lemieux. Oh my heavens. What a goal. What a move. Lemieux. Oh baby,” Cole said excitedly after Lemieux went the length of the ice, skated through the defence pair of Shawn Chambers and Neil Wilkinson and deked goalie Jon Casey.
“I don’t know when it’s going to come out. No idea ⦠I don’t plan it. It’s spontaneous,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I don’t script the thing. It’s adlibbed ⦠and that’s what broadcasting’s all about.”
Ron MacLean the host of CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada,” said Cole’s distinctive play-by-play style “comes on you like smoke from a campfire.”
Fellow broadcaster Greg Millen, a former NHL goaltender, said Cole’s voice was “almost like a symphony.”
“Bob had an unbelievable ability of bringing the game up and down depending on what was happening on the ice.”
In typical Cole fashion, he initially wondered ahead of doing the autobiography who would be interested in reading his story, “just because I do hockey games.”
But what games. He did the 1972 Summit Series on radio. On TV, there was the 1976 game in Philadelphia when the Soviet Red Army players left the ice in protest at the Flyers take-no-prisoners tactics.
“They’re going home,” said an incredulous Cole.
He was there for the 2002 Olympic final in Salt Lake City when Canada ended its 50-year Olympic gold-medal drought with a win over the United States in the final.
“Joe Sakic scores and that makes it 5-2 Canada. Surely that’s got to be it?” said Cole.
Not to mention a string of Stanley Cup finals.
But Cole was more than hockey.
He called Bob Beamon’s world-record long jump at the 1968 Olympics, curled in the Brier, served as quiz master on “Reach for the Top” and worked for the Newfoundland government.
Cole’s Hockey Night in Canada swansong came April 6, 2019, the regular-season finale in Montreal between the Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs. Players, coaches and fans stood in appreciation to honour Cole in the second period as his four children, Christian, Hilary, Megan and Robbie, watched in the gondola at the Bell Centre.
“Thank you so much Montreal and Canada,” he said to viewers, looking down from his perch. “It’s been a pleasure. I’m going to miss this.”
Don Cherry praised Cole during his Coach’s Corner segment that night.
“Foster (Hewitt) was good, Danny (Gallivan) was good,” Cherry said of Cole’s HNIC predecessors. “But the best of all, I think, and I’ve seen them all, is Bob Cole.”
NHL greats from Wayne Gretzky to Mark Messier and current stars Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid as well as MacLean and Harry Neale, his former colour man, all feted Cole.
“Mr. Cole, congratulations on 50 great years of hockey. You were an inspiration to all of us in Canada,” said Gretzky, adding “Oh baby.”
BOSTON -- The Miami Heat beat Boston with an unprecedented barrage of 3-pointers on Wednesday night to erase the home-court advantage the Celtics worked all season to establish.
Tyler Herro had 24 points and 14 assists, hitting six of Miami’s 23 3-pointers -- the most in a playoff game in franchise history -- to lead the Heat to a 111-101 victory over top-seeded Boston and tie the first-round playoff series at one game apiece.
“It was a very good response,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And then we also made some shots. It always looks better when you make shots.”
Bam Adebayo had 21 points and 10 rebounds, and new Celtics nemesis Caleb Martin also had 21 points for the Heat, who shot 53.5% (23 of 43) from beyond the arc to bounce back after a Game 1 blowout.
That broke Miami’s playoff record of 20 3-pointers, set against the Bucks in the 2021 first round.
“They obviously made a conscious effort to have free reign to shoot more,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said.
And shoot and shoot and shoot.
Playing their third straight game without playoff stalwart Jimmy Butler, who was injured in the opening play-in game, Miami shot better than 50% from 3-point range in each of the first three quarters (and a still productive 4 of 10 in the fourth).
After Boston cut an 11-point lead to six, 102-96, with 3:16 to play, Martin hit a 3 and Boston never got as close as two possessions again.
“You have to take ‘em, based on how they were playing us the first two games,” said Spoelstra, who saw Boston hit 22 3-pointers to Miami’s 12 in the opener. “I did not want to get annihilated in that department like we did the game before.”
Jaylen Brown scored 33 points for Boston. Jayson Tatum scored 28, showing no ill-effects of Martin’s hard foul that sent him crashing to the floor with under a minute to play in Boston’s 11494 victory on Sunday.
Tatum got up off the parquet floor.
But so did Miami.
“It seemed we couldn’t get them to miss,” Brown said. “They had a record-breaking night . ... They made a lot of shots that usually we’re comfortable with.”
The series moves to Miami for Games 3 and 4 on Saturday and Monday.
“It’s always a good thing if you can get one on the road,” Martin said. “You always look to try to steal one. We were able to do that.”
The Celtics won 64 games in the regular season to claim home-court advantage through the NBA Finals, but they didn’t make very good use of it on Wednesday despite a crowd that was still fired up over seeing their star land hard in the series opener.