Bob Cole

Early Life

Bob Cole was born in St. John’s, Dominion of Newfoundland, in 1933, 16 years before Newfoundland joined Confederation.

His love for hockey began at a young age as a result of an injury suffered playing his favourite sport as a child — soccer. After injuring his knee, he was bedridden for nearly six months. During that time, he collected oatmeal box tops to send in for photos of hockey players, which he would arrange on his bedspread as he listened to hockey games on St. John’s radio station VNOF. Hockey games broadcast on the CBC in those years were announced by Foster Hewitt, a broadcasting legend whom Cole would come to admire and emulate.

Early Career

Bob Cole got his first job in radio as a part-time DJ and news reader at St. John’s radio station VOCM in 1954. Passing through Toronto on the way home from a trip to New York in 1956, Cole brought an audition tape to Foster Hewitt. Much to his surprise, Hewitt welcomed Cole in and listened to his tape. Cole recalls the two spoke for two hours. Hewitt gave him a lot of sound advice, including to modulate his voice, rising and falling with the play of the game, and saving the important calls for the most important plays.

Cole called local hockey games in Newfoundland for years before making his way to the CBC, where he began announcing NHL games on the radio in 1969. He also anchored the news program Here & Now out of St. John’s. He gained increasing national prominence in 1972 when he called the radio play-by-play of the landmark Summit Series.

Career Highlights

In 1973, Bob Cole moved to television and began calling games for Hockey Night in Canada, CBC’s flagship sports program. Throughout his career, Cole refused all requests from the CBC to move to Toronto, where CBC headquarters is located. He maintained his permanent residence in St. John’s. His decades-long routine was to fly out on Friday to cover the game on Saturday (typically a Toronto Maple Leafs home game) and then return home on Sunday.

Cole was also the hockey announcer at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City when the Canadian men’s team ended a 50-year gold medal drought by defeating the United States.

Cole’s distinctive voice and style of announcing has led other broadcasters and announcers to describe his technique in colourful ways. Ron MacLean, the long-time host of Hockey Night in Canada, described Cole’s play-by-play announcing as coming on “like smoke from a campfire.” Former goaltender and fellow broadcaster Greg Millen likened Cole’s voice to a symphony. Cole’s Order of Canada investiture noted his passion for hockey and his “rich voice, which crescendos up and down with every play.”

Cole may hold the unusual distinction of having announced three of the most viewed or listened-to hockey games of all time in Canada. In addition to announcing the radio play-by-play of the Summit Series, Cole was the announcer for the 1994 Stanley Cup final (which had 4.97 million viewers), as well as the gold medal game between Canada and the US at the 2002 Winter Olympics (which set a new record with 8.7 million viewers).

DID YOU KNOW?
Bob Cole was well-known for his signature call: “Oh, baby!” It was not restricted to hockey broadcasts, since Cole was known to use the expression outside of the arena as well. Cole believes he first started using the phrase while describing Mario Lemieux’s stickhandling ability during the 1991 Stanley Cup playoffs.

Other Activities

Bob Cole was also an accomplished curler. He was the skip of the Newfoundland teams at the 1971 and 1975 Brier.

Outside of the world of sports, Cole worked as quizmaster on the Newfoundland and Labrador edition of the game show Reach for the Top. Actor and producer Allan Hawco also hired Cole to provide the voice-over recaps and introductions in episodes of the hit CBC series Republic of Doyle, which is set in St. John’s.

Honours and Awards

Bob Cole received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster in 1996. He was inducted into the Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Hall of Fame in 1997 and received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2002. Over the course of his career, Cole was nominated for a Gemini Award nine times. He won for best sports play-by-play announcer in 2007.

In 2016, Cole was made a Member of the Order of Canada for “enhancing the hockey experience for generations of Canadians with his analysis and spirited announcing, as one of Canada’s most iconic voices in sports broadcasting.” At the 2022 Canadian Screen Awards, Cole received a Lifetime Achievement Award for “an exceptional lifetime of work that has had a profound impact on the media industry at home or abroad.”