February 8, 1923: The 1st Hockey Game On Radio

The Mutual Street Arena. I looked for a photo 

of Norman Albert, but couldn't find one.

February 8, 1923: For the 1st time anywhere, a hockey game is broadcast on radio. The announcer was Norman Albert, a sportswriter for the Toronto Star. The station was CFCA, owned by the Star (as many early radio stations were owned by newspapers), at 770 on the AM dial.

The league was the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA), the game was a Playoff, at the Mutual Street Arena in Toronto, and the result was North Toronto 16, Midland 4. Lionel Conacher, a hockey and football star who would be voted Canada's Athlete of the Half-Century in 1950, scored 6 goals.

Albert broadcast only the 3rd period. Why? This was the dawn of broadcast radio, and CFCA's schedule was pretty strict: A typical broadcasting day for them in 1923 began at 12:00 Noon, with a weather report. From 2:30 to 3:30, there were agricultural reports -- despite being, then as now, Canada's largest city, Toronto was nicknamed "Hogtown" -- news and music. Closing stock market figures and late-day news were aired from 5:30 to 6:00. From 8 to 9 every evening, there was a live concert. So only from 9:00 onward were they free to add programming.

Albert, 25 years old at the time of the broadcast, had worked for the Star since 1917. He was the secretary to managing editor John R. Bowen. "They settled on me," he Albert told sportswriter Dick Beddoes in 1973, on the 50th Anniversary of the broadcast, "because, in addition to my secretarial duties, I also did some sports reporting at night." In fact, Albert wrote the story of the North Toronto-Midland game that appeared in the next day's Star.

On February 14, Albert -- no relation to later New York sportscaster Marv, his brothers Al and Steve, or his son Kenny -- made the 1st NHL broadcast on radio, and the Toronto St. Patricks beat the Ottawa Senators, 6-4, also at the Mutual Street Arena. Again, Albert broadcast only the 3rd period. The St. Patricks were renamed the Maple Leafs in 1927.

Two days after that, Foster Hewitt, another Star employee, and son of the paper's sports editor, William A. Hewitt, broadcast a game for the 1st time. He became the voice of the sport, and remained so far nearly half a century, coming out of retirement to broadcast the 1972 "Summit Series" between Canada and the Soviet Union. He lived until 1985, and the Hockey Hall of Fame's award for broadcasters is named for him.

Albert remained with the Star until 1927, when the rival Toronto Telegram hired him and made him the financial editor. He left the newspaper business in 1950 to join an investment firm on Bay St.

He was fairly well off when declining heath forced him into retirement in 1966. Sadly, Parkinson’s disease would leave the man who called hockey’s first live play-by-play broadcast barely able to speak when he died on Christmas Day, December 25, 1974, at the age of 77.

CFCA stood for "Canada's Finest Covers America." But the Great Depression did it in, and it stopped broadcasting in 1933. The Maple Leafs moved into Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931, and the Mutual Street Arena, also known as the Arena Gardens, remained a site for other sports and concerts until it was demolished in 1989. Housing was built on the site.

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February 8, 1923 was a Thursday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball was not yet major league. And there were no games scheduled for the NHL. So there were no scores on this historic day.