Hockey's First Telecast

When was the first hockey game televised? More than half a century ago in the winter of 1940. A game played in New York's Madison Square Garden made history when the Rangers hosted the Canadiens. That night, for the first time, hockey fans at home could catch the action, on the miraculous new invention called television.

Not many fans, mind you, because television was in its infancy in 1940. There were only about 300 sets in all of New York City. Their screens were a mere 7 inches wide. Incredibly, there was only one camera to follow the play. The announcer's name was Skip Waltz, although he preferred to use the name Bill Allen.

A dozen years later, during the 1952-53 season, the first hockey games were televised in Canada. The Montreal Canadiens presented their first televised game from the forum on October 11, 1952, and the Leafs TV debut took place three weeks later, on November 1, 1952.

Incredibly, the first producer of the Montreal hockey telecasts was the 24-year-old sports editor of an Ottawa newspaper. Gerald Renaud applied for the job and landed it, even though he had never seen television and had no idea how to produce a game on TV. He hastily read some library books on the subject, asked other CBC production people how things worked and eventually did a praiseworthy job.

But televise hockey was not welcome with open arms by certain league owners and executives. Many of them feared the medium would dramatically hurt ticket sales leads owner cons might, for example, charged a mere hundred dollars per game for TV rights to leave games during hockey night in Canada's initial season. He wanted to make certain televise hockey would be in his team's best interest before locking himself into a long-term contract. At the same time, and NHL president Clarence Campbell took a jaundiced view of television, calling it "the greatest menace in the entertainment world."

For more stories and fascinating hockey facts, visit Brian McFarlane's site: http://ithappenedinhockey.com

Brenda McFarlane is a playwright, scriptwriter and theatre director who helps her dad, Brian McFarlane maintain his blog site. Her dad, Brian McFarlane has written countless fabulous books on hockey and is the foremost hockey historian in the world. His new book, From the Broadcast Booth, is packed with great stories he collected over more than 25 years he worked for Hockey Night in Canada and the decades he's been a hockey journalist and television personality.