First Hockey Night in Canada broadcast
Hockey games on television in Canada are ubiquitous, one just about every night of the week, a $5.2-billion network investment that means markets are flooded with games.
And it all began in English Canada on Nov. 1, 1952, when the iconic voice of Foster Hewitt called a game in Toronto between the Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins, starting a tradition like no other in Canadian sports and television history. Rene Lecavalier had done a French broadcast a couple of weeks earlier of a Montreal-Detroit game, but it was Hewitt who launched the nationwide staple of Saturday nights.
With his legendary opening — “Hello, Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland” — Hewitt became the voice of the game for decades.
Those certainly were different times. The games were joined in progress, first at 9 p.m. and then 8:30 p.m. until 1968 when the entire game was shown.