CTV ANCHOR DIGGING INTO ARCHIVES TO REDISCOVER SPORTS HIGHLIGHTS
Today's theme: Young and old.
Matt Young, to be specific, is feeling nostalgic.
Toward that end, the 40-yearold Young — a reporter-anchor who has been employed by CTV Saskatoon since 2009 — has been busy scouring the station's archives, foraging for footage of decades-old sporting events and achievements.
“It's a gold mine,” said Young, who has uncovered so many priceless nuggets while compiling the first few instalments of Classic Sports Moments — a one-minute segment that is to debut next week.
“The spark was when I was watching old CFL games at home one night, posting some of the clips on the internet, and seeing the reaction.
“Then I walked into our archives room and saw the old tapes and it just clicked. It was a `wow!' moment. It brought back so many memories and I thought, let's bring some of these back to life.”
Just like that, Young found himself immersed in the fine art of sifting through videotapes and rediscovering some lost treasures. They will be the foundation of a retrospective feature that is to air Tuesdays on CTV Morning Live, CTV News at Noon and CTV News at Five.
“There's so much,” Young marvelled. “There's the Saskatchewan Roughriders, old Grey Cups, the 1989 Memorial Cup, Saskatoon Blades, Regina Pats, Regina Rams, Saskatoon Hilltops, University of Saskatchewan Huskies, Rick Folk winning the Brier in 1980, Sandra Schmirler at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, high school football — really, a lot of sports from across Saskatchewan.
“There's so much good stuff in there that people haven't seen in a long, long time. It's really a lot of fun to go through it and to hear from so many people who have asked me when they can PVR it or when they can watch.”
The term “PVR” wasn't part of our vocabulary when CTV Saskatoon began to compile its archives.
“VHS” was more fashionable. Let's not forget “Beta” — the brand of videotape on which some of the archival footage is stored.
“We have an old Beta machine and it still works,” said Young, who is still looking for a machine that can play three-quarter-inch videotape.
“I went upstairs and put one of the tapes in it. It was a little rusty at the start, with a bit of snow. I had to play the tape once or twice to get the dirt off it but, once I did, it looked great.”
The tapes are a throwback to an era in which we weren't inundated with sports television.
It wasn't a certainty, for example, that all Roughriders games would be televised. And, in those days, the home games that were televised were blacked out in Saskatchewan.
Whereas NHL fans can now enjoy a nightly smorgasbord of hockey, there was a time — until the mid-1980s — when Saskatchewanians could watch only one NHL game per week, on Saturday night.
“We're really spoiled now with the amount of games that we get to watch and enjoy,” Young said, “whereas when we were kids it was a big event when the Riders were on TV.”
Young followed the Riders and Pats while growing up in Regina. As a kid, he was a voracious reader of the Regina Leader-post and, with that in mind, contacted me to inquire as to whether I was interested in writing about Classic Sports Moments. “YESSSSSSSSSS!”
Audaciously, I even made a request.
Recalling that the Roughriders' Aug. 30, 1981, game in Edmonton was televised by CTV, I asked Young if, by any chance, footage of that spectacular exhibition of Canadian professional football had been preserved in the archives.
Although Edmonton won 44-34 at Commonwealth Stadium, the Roughriders threw a serious scare into the then-eskimos at a time when they were a dynasty.
John Hufnagel threw for 405 yards after relieving struggling starter Joe Barnes in the second quarter.
Joey Walters proceeded to catch three touchdown passes from Hufnagel, who averaged (get this!) 23.8 yards per completion. Not to be outdone, legendary Edmonton quarterback Warren Moon passed for 418 yards.
Young was born 412 days after that game was played. The mere mention of that air show in Edmonton intrigued him, so he soon pored over the Beta tapes once again. A few days later, my phone rang once more.
“I found it,” he said during a followup conversation, as I whinnied.
“I went into the archives, found tapes marked `1981,' and there was the August 30 game. I thought, Rob's going to love this!”
Oh, will I ever. And so will you.