Voice of NHL called Summit Series in '72
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.
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. “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.
His love for hockey started at a young age. At 11, he was bedridden for almost six months due to a knee injury suffered playing soccer.
The neighbourhood helped him collect Quaker Oats box tops for a promotion that involved photos of NHL players. With the photos spread out on his bed in line formations, he'd listen to the radio broadcasts of games.