Veteran sports writer and columnist Al Strachan candidly admits that hockey is Canada’s national sport (next to lacrosse) and for nearly 90 years on radio and television, “Hockey Night in Canada” (HNIC) played as large a part in elevating hockey to such an iconic level in our country. And to peel the onion even further, the “Hot Stove” segment of those broadcasts helped to further solidify hockey in the national conscience.
“Hockey Night in Canada has been the #1 show in Canada for years. And the Hot Stove has become a major part of that major part. It gave Canadians an introduction to its players, as well as an insight to how the game is played. It made the audience feel that they were part of the game. It broke down barriers between the viewers and the viewed,” said Strachan during a recent phone interview from his home in South Florida.
And Strachan ought to know about how both HNIC and the Hot Stove segment played such a significant role in making hockey Canada’s national sport. A former columnist for the Toronto Star, the Globe & Mail, the Montreal Gazette and even the late, lamented Sunday Express, he spent a good part of 20 years as one of the regular commentators of the modern day version of the segment that was called the “Satellite Hot Stove”. He shared the electronic stage with a number of retired players and fellow sports writers and broadcasters, as they expressed their opinions and off-the-ice inside information about the world of pro hockey to millions of devoted viewers every Saturday night during HNIC’s second intermission.
As well, Strachan’s involvement also gave him a first-hand look at the politics, massive egos, the dog-eat-dog tensions and the war of wits between broadcasters and broadcast executives that slowly ate away at these two Canadian sports casting institutions. And he offers plenty of on camera and off camera insights in his new book Hockey’s Hot Stove.
Historically speaking, the Satellite Hot Stove evolved from the original Hot Stove League, which had its roots during HNIC’s radio days of the 1930s, where legendary sports writers like Montreal’s Elmer Ferguson and Hall of Fame retired players like the Maple Leafs’ Syl Apps would gather round to talk hockey every week. The name came from a practice that was common in small Canadian towns before radio became a mass medium, in which men would gather round a wood burning stove (which was placed in the middle of a room whether it be in a home, general store or barber shop) and would talk about hockey as the stove gradually got hotter and hotter, therefore supplying the only central source of heat for that dwelling during a cold Canadian winter.
As Strachan tells in the book, many sports writers and broadcasters saw the potential of what appearing as a Hot Stove panelist can mean to their careers, and many of them would beg for a tryout; however, the majority of those aspiring Hot Stovers would fall into the “many are called, few are chosen” category.
“For most part, sports media people are very egotistical, and they think they are the most important person in the world, which is why they wanted to take part in the highest rated segment on the number one rated TV show in Canada. They felt it was the elite level of Canadian television,” he said. “Those tryouts were done on the air during a Hot Stove broadcast. If they did a major error, they would not be called back. Also, they weren’t good TV people who didn’t perform well in that medium, or viewers would express that they didn’t like a certain panelist.”
The book is filled with a lot of highly entertaining stories of what it was like to be a regular panelist on the Satellite Hot Stove segment, and Strachan is not afraid to show his honesty and bash the politics that went on in the world of sports broadcasting, particularly how the CBC handled the Hot Stove and HNIC as a cash cow, and the callous nature of how CBC executives treated many of the on air personalities, especially when they were let go from the program because the network was “looking for a new direction”.
But Strachan enjoyed being part of the Hot Stove segment for two main reasons. One was how it gave him the opportunity to transmit major breaking hockey stories, thereby scooping the hockey beat writers. “There were never really any bad moments when I did the Hot Stove. I prefer to remember the better stories, like when I told for the first time that the Atlanta Thrashers were about to move to Winnipeg, or when Wayne Gretzky was about to be traded to St. Louis from L.A., or when Tampa Bay Lightning owner Barry Melrose went to the team’s locker room one night to tell the players how to play hockey,” he remembers.
Another reason was the sheer enjoyment of doing the segment, and the widespread camaraderie that developed between the panelists. “Whenever we were on the road, we would meet for dinner every Friday night,” he said. “Legendary sportscaster Brian McFarlane would join us, and he would always bring a tape recorder with him, which he would put on the table and record our conversations. Many of those recorded conversations later ended up as material for his books.”
However, Strachan attributes the success and lasting legacy of the Hot Stove to the always increased desire of the fans to know more about hockey than what they would read in the papers or watch on a TV newscast. “In a way, we were catering to the human desire for gossip; tell them what went on or what they didn’t see,” he said. “Give them all kinds of the things they like to know that they usually didn’t get to know.”
And diehard hockey fans will get plenty of the above when they read Hockey’s Hot Stove. Al Strachan gives an unabashed, brutally honest and entertaining look at what really went on behind and in front of the camera of this vital piece of hockey broadcasting, which he affectionately referred to as “The Circus”. Whether it be Ron MacLean’s unpredictability when it came to choosing who spoke first during a segment, or such unsung heroes like John Shannon and Kathy Broderick (who made the Hot Stove tick despite all the always constant pre- and post-show pressures), the many road stories, or the CBC’s 11th-hour battle to avert losing the broadcasting rights of HNIC to CTV, this book certainly doesn’t disappoint in its mission to tell the good, the bad and the ugly side of broadcasting the world of the NHL to its millions of fans every week between October and June. So get the fireplace stoked up this winter, and prepared to be throttled (and amply informed) by Hockey’s Hot Stove.
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