Sign Offs

Bob Cole, 90, on April 24. Captivated as a youth by renowned play-by-play broadcaster Foster Hewitt, Cole started his broadcasting career in his hometown with VOCM-AM St. John’s, NL, moving over to CBC Radio in 1969. He was the radio voice for the 1972 Team Canada-Soviet Union Summit and while Hewitt made the now-famous call of Paul Henderson’s goal on TV, Cole did the same on the radio broadcast. He moved into television in 1973 and when Bill Hewitt retired, Cole became the play-by-play voice for Hockey Night in Canada on CBC games involving the Toronto Maple Leafs. Cole was the primary play-by-play announcer for HNIC from 1980-2008, until he was replaced by Jim Hughson. He was also a staple during the Stanley Cup playoffs and handled play-by-play for multiple Olympic match-ups as well as the World Cup of Hockey. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996 as the recipient of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for broadcasting excellence. In 2007, Cole won his first Gemini Award for Sports Play-by-Play. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2016. More recently, he was recognized with the Canadian Screen Awards’ Lifetime Achievement honour in 2022. Read more here.

Al Shaver, 96, on April 22. After graduating from the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio Arts in 1948, Shaver had a long play-play-play career across both radio and television with stops at CJOY Guelph, CJCJ Calgary, CHAT Medicine Hat, CFRN Edmonton, CKGM Montreal, CKWW Windsor and CKEY Toronto. In 1967, he headed stateside to become the original play-by-play voice of the Minnesota North Stars for all 26 seasons, first with WCCO Radio and later KSTP-AM and WAYL-AM. He opted to stay in the Twin Cities when the team moved to Dallas in 1993, calling University of Minnesota men’s hockey before his retirement in 1996. Among other accolades, Shaver was inducted into the media section of the Hockey Hall of Fame and Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame, He was awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award in 1993. The press box at Xcel Energy Center, home of the Minnesota Wild, bears Shaver’s name. His son, Wally, and grandson Jason followed in his footsteps as sportscasters.

Stacey Brooks, 50, on April 22 after a battle with breast cancer. Brooks worked in entertainment marketing for the better part of the last two decades, most recently as Director of Marketing at Super Channel, which she joined in July 2023, following 16 years at Bell Media. Among the senior marketing roles she held at Bell were Senior Manager, Marketing Communications and Customer Acquisition and Senior Marketing Manager, Bell TV. Originally from Scarborough, ON, prior to working in entertainment, Brooks held roles with software and tech solutions providers including Chancery Software, Creo, and Sonar Group. Read more here.