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Harry Neale will receive the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award

26CornerBlitz

By 26CornerBlitz
in The Aud Club

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spndnchz All Star

spndnchz

Posted
Posted

Doing some looking around about Foster Hewitt.

 

Found this

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Sports/Digital%2BArchives/Hockey/ID/1581047458/

 

Interesting video from way back about the gondola he would broadcast from.

 

• For the first three years he broadcast Maple Leaf games, Hewitt was perched in the rafters of the Mutual Street Arena. When Conn Smythe built Maple Leaf Gardens, he gave Foster Hewitt Productions exclusive broadcasting rights not just to hockey but to all events held at the facility. Hewitt even arranged for all advertising himself, keeping an undisclosed percentage.

 

• While the Gardens was being built, Hewitt started planning his new broadcasting location. He and a building contractor spent an afternoon checking out every floor of the nearby 20-storey Eaton's building. He decided that the fifth floor was the best position from which to watch pedestrians on the street below, and decided the broadcast booth should be the same height.

 

• The first season at the Gardens was sponsored exclusively by General Motors. According to Scott Young's Hello Canada! The Life and Times of Foster Hewitt, the gondola got its name from C.M. Passmore, who had arranged the GM sponsorship. When the advertising executive first saw Hewitt's broadcasting booth, which resembled a long, suspended tube, he remarked, "It looks just like the gondola on an airship." Hewitt soon began using the name in his broadcasts.

 

• When first constructed, the gondola could only be reached by a catwalk that had no guardrails. Then there was an almost vertical ladder to descend to the gondola, which was suspended some 20 metres above the ice.

 

• From the gondola, Hewitt's play-by-play was transmitted over telegraph lines to radio stations in Ontario and then across the country.

X. Benedict All Star

X. Benedict

Posted
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Good for Harry, I like him. I'll never understand the negative comments he gets on here.

HIs best days were behind him by the time he arrived here. But I always liked him.

HNIC he was great with Bob Cole - they were the best in sports IMO. Better than Summerall and Madden.

JJFIVEOH All Star

JJFIVEOH

Posted
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HIs best days were behind him by the time he arrived here. But I always liked him.

HNIC he was great with Bob Cole - they were the best in sports IMO. Better than Summerall and Madden.

 

No doubt he's slipping a little bit, but I'd take Harry on a bad day over most of the other wanna-bes out there.

Ghost of Dwight Drane First Liner

Ghost of Dwight Drane

Posted
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HIs best days were behind him by the time he arrived here. But I always liked him.

HNIC he was great with Bob Cole - they were the best in sports IMO. Better than Summerall and Madden.

 

Amen....although he has always been a common sense guy, and had to endure the likes of Roysie, Connolly, Pommers, etc. I am pretty sure about 30 games into his stint here he wanted to run far away.

 

RJ is always the Homer....Neale would want to call it as he saw it, but at the same time would not want to bury his partner. By definition....he had to start his own retirement early because he would flip his lid if he had to take the Sabres gig seriously.

TrueBlueGED Hall of Famer

TrueBlueGED

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I never really watched HNIC, but I have no idea how anyone could think he's been good with the Sabres. He's nothing short of awful...give me Lorentz any day.

 

In full disclosure I also thought Summerall and Madden were flat out bad, so maybe it's me that's the problem :lol:

qwksndmonster All Star

qwksndmonster

Posted
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Amen....although he has always been a common sense guy, and had to endure the likes of Roysie, Connolly, Pommers, etc. I am pretty sure about 30 games into his stint here he wanted to run far away.

 

RJ is always the Homer....Neale would want to call it as he saw it, but at the same time would not want to bury his partner. By definition....he had to start his own retirement early because he would flip his lid if he had to take the Sabres gig seriously.

You know he called Leafs games before he called Sabres games. Saying Neale isn't a homer is like saying Physics isn't a nerd.

darksabre Hall of Famer

darksabre

Posted
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Amen....although he has always been a common sense guy, and had to endure the likes of Roysie, Connolly, Pommers, etc. I am pretty sure about 30 games into his stint here he wanted to run far away.

 

RJ is always the Homer....Neale would want to call it as he saw it, but at the same time would not want to bury his partner. By definition....he had to start his own retirement early because he would flip his lid if he had to take the Sabres gig seriously.

 

What?

Ghost of Dwight Drane First Liner

Ghost of Dwight Drane

Posted
Posted

What?

 

I mean when he was actively broadcasting.....I'm sure if you asked Harry in private what he thought about the team, he may not have talked too glowingly about them. He signed on for 82 games of wussbag hockey per year. I don't know this for a fact, but I just see Harry asking himself, "WTF did I just do?" by game 20 of 2007.......

SwampD Hall of Famer

SwampD

Posted
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I mean when he was actively broadcasting.....I'm sure if you asked Harry in private what he thought about the team, he may not have talked too glowingly about them. He signed on for 82 games of wussbag hockey per year. I don't know this for a fact, but I just see Harry asking himself, "WTF did I just do?" by game 20 of 2007.......

I like him, but you're right, Harry has been Buffalo's Walmart greeter.

 

Here's my favorite memory of him. When I hear him laugh every time Mair sucker punches the guy, it makes me laugh.

Sabre Dance Third Liner

Sabre Dance

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I have tons of respect and admiration for Harry - he was a coach and GM in the league for years and a top-notch color man for years on HNIC. If you heard him with Bob Cole on HNIC, remember that this was the BIG time. Saturday nights broadcasting Canada'a national sport to the entire country - a lot of pressure to be good. Of course, he also had a week to prepare for the game, so he could come up with stats, stories, player background, etc. ahead of time. With the Sabres, he was basically semi-retired and doing several games a week. That plus his age surely brought his performance down a smidge. Yes, I was a huge fan of Lorentz as well, but Harry is still pretty awesome and certainly deserving of the award.

Now that the Sabres have two current award-winning broadcasters on staff, perhaps they can try to improve the team in order to get it's level of performance up to those of RJ and Harry.... :rolleyes:

IKnowPhysics First Liner

IKnowPhysics

Posted
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I don't care how bad some of you think he may be in his twilight, this is a guy you want to have around:

 

The native of Sarnia, Ont., has lived in Amherst for almost two decades.

“Once I found out you could get 30 beers for $18.95, I moved here very quickly from Toronto,” Neale said.

 

Perfect role for him is intermission story time guy. Hope he stays for a while.

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