“The DNA evidence was all over that one.” As these words echo from the television, all eyes rest on the broken shaft of a hockey stick. This is not the testimony of Jack McCoy’s most recent expert witness-this is evidence of a different kind. Harry Neale, broadcaster for Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC), has just used the splintered stick as proof of a slashing penalty during a recent Toronto Maple Leafs-Ottawa Senators tilt.
Neale is famous for quirky lines like these. Sitting alongside Bob Cole in the gondola high above ice level, Neale has been an integral part of Canadian television for over 17 years. As one-half of the duo that calls every Saturday night hockey game on HNIC, the highest rated Canadian-made television program, Neale is an important cog in our cultural wheel.
Growing up in Sarnia, Neale listened intently to radio broadcasts of Maple Leafs and Red Wings games Saturday and Sunday nights. Today, Harry lives in Buffalo with his wife and spends many of his nights at the other end of the microphone. He has three children from his second marriage, one of whom is a graduate of Victoria College at U of T. In the 1950’s Neale attended Victoria College himself, and played hockey for U of T’s Varsity Blues.
“I majored in political science and economics,” recalls Neale. “I think I chose those because they didn’t have any early morning or weekend classes.” As a youngster Neale, like so many others, dreamed of playing in the NHL. Playing junior hockey for the Toronto Marlboros, Neale won a Memorial Cup and went on to attend training camp with the Toronto Maple Leafs. At 20, however, Neale realized that “the writing was on the wall”-he wasn’t going to make a living as an NHL hockey player.
After four years at U of T, and after having won a provincial championship with the Varsity Blues, Neale moved on to become a high school teacher in Hamilton. “Back then,” Neale recalls, “if you had a bachelor’s degree you could become a teacher right away…if you promised to spend two summers at the Ontario Teacher’s College.”
Neale first began coaching at Westdale Collegiate in Hamilton. From there, Neale moved on to Columbus, OH, as the coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. He lasted four seasons before moving on to coach professional hockey in the World Hockey Association (WHA) and the NHL.
As a professional hockey coach, Neale’s career was anything but boring. In 1975, during his tenure as coach of the WHA’s Minnesota Fighting Saints, Neale became embroiled in a fight with one of his players-the then notorious tough guy Gordie Gallant-in a hotel. “I had imposed a curfew that night,” recalls Neale. “When I called up to his room, he wasn’t there. I told his roommate, Mike McMahon, to inform him that there would be a fine of $100.”
“Gallant came back a little full,” as Harry puts it, and when he found out about the fine he came straight up to Neale’s room and “cocked me right in the face.” Before the kerfuffle was over, Gallant had taken on both Neale and the assistant coach.
“Gordie Gallant was one of the toughest guys I’ve ever seen,” reminisces Neale. “When he first came into the WHA he was only 5’10, 170 pounds, and he took on every tough guy there was. And believe me, there were plenty at that time. Last I heard he saved a child and his girlfriend from a burning car…he was 170 pounds of pure steal, he was.”
Neale is famous for stories like these. One of Neale’s most memorable meles helped spawn Roger Neilson’s legendary coaching career. As coach of the Vancouver Canucks in 1980-81, Neale was suspended for six games after he punched a fan in Quebec City. The fan had taken a swing at notorious enforcer Tiger Williams, and Neale jumped into the fray. As a result, assistant coach Roger Neilson, ended up taking over the head coaching duties for the final six games.
Neilson was so successful as a head coach that Neale, also the general manager of the team, decided to leave Neilson in the position. “The plan had always been for Roger to taker over the next year,” says Neale. “After I was suspended, the team did well so I left him in…it was one of the best moves I ever made.” That year the Canucks reached the Stanley Cup final for the first time in franchise history. Roger Neilson went on to coach a thousand games and become a hall-of-famer.
After losing his job in Vancouver, Neale signed on as coach with Detroit. Before his move to the Red Wings, Neale remembers joking with HNIC’s executive producer Don Wallace about the job security of NHL coaches. “I told Don that if I get fired again I’m coming to him for a job.” Forty-three games into the 1985-86 season, Neale lost his job in Detroit and before the press got wind, he was on the phone to Wallace about working for CBC. Wallace told Neale to “be in Montreal this Saturday night.”
Neale made his first appearance on the HNIC telecast as a guest commentator that same Saturday. From there, he went on to become the analyst for hockey telecasts on the then brand new cable station The Sports Network (TSN). Neale also served as CBC’s third analyst for busier nights in the NHL.
Harry got his big break when HNIC analyst and former New York Ranger goalie John Davidson was lured over to the Madison Square Gardens network. From there, Neale was paired with Bob Cole and he has since become a staple of HNIC’s Saturday night telecasts.
Neale is a huge quote buff, and his office is littered with various quote books. Appropriately, Harry is personally responsible for some memorable one-liners. Once asked about his career in coaching, Neale responded, “I don’t want to be coach of the year, I want to be coach for the year.” This witticism still surfaces today in reference to the job security of professional sports coaches.
In his spare time Neale likes pickling and golf. That’s right, the time lost art of fermenting cucumbers is one of Harry’s favorite hobbies, along with spending time on the putting green. At the country club, Neale’s foursome usually includes coaching legend Scotty Bowman and St. Louis Blues assistant coach Don Lever. Apparently Bowman’s handicap is slightly higher then the number of Stanley Cup rings he owns-nine. Other than pickling and golf, his daughter Sara remarks, “I don’t think he has many other hobbies…he watches hockey all the time.”
Neale says that he’s proud of his daughter Sara, who graduated with the Victoria College class of 2003. “I didn’t attend my own graduation,” says Neale, “I guess I was embarrassed to get a degree after doing as little work as I had done.”
Neale’s finer memories of his time at U of T revolve around his teammates and friends who, from time to time, could get themselves into a little mischief. “I didn’t go to the Brunswick House,” says Neale, “it was too far. We preferred the King Cole Room at the Park Plaza Hotel on Avenue Road. It was close enough that we could stumble home after having a couple of beverages.”
One night Neale and company demonstrated their disapproval with a Cole Room price hike. “They raised the price on us from 10 cents a beer to 15,” recalls Neale, “so we protested by breaking all of the old 10-cent glasses on the floor.”
On the ice, Harry recounts one of his fondest memories as the night the Varsity Blues played the reigning world champion Whitby Dunlops. “They had just won the world championship,” says Neale, ” and we beat them.”
In the future, there could be some possible changes for Harry Neale. It’s possible that Neale could be joining the cable team up in Ottawa to broadcast the Senators mid-week games. This is an interesting turn of events given Ottawa fans’ criticism of his supposed bias towards the Leafs in the most recent Ottawa-Toronto playoff series.
Even Ottawa’s mayor Bob Chiarelli got involved in the CBC bashing, calling Bob Cole and Harry Neale “Maple Leaf Homers.” Asked about his alleged bias, Harry responded by saying, “if the telecasts aren’t good enough for Ottawa, they can take a big bite of my ass.”
Things did eventually settle down and Chiarelli sent Neale a hybrid Senators-Maple Leafs jersey as a peace gesture. Asked about the Ottawa mayor, Neale says “he is a nice man.” Never at a loss for words, Neale also adds, “I got the man elected, I got him national publicity and that is something his PR people could never have done.”
Evidently, Neale’s influence seeps into the fabric of everyday life in this country. With so many Canadians living and breathing hockey, the television personalities that broadcast these games have become cultural mainstays. Generations of hockey fans still sing the praises of the late Foster Hewitt, the voice of the Leafs for over 56 years who coined the famous expression “he shoots, he scores!”
For the hockey-crazed children of the eighties, nineties and the present, the game calling and analysis of Harry Neale and Bob Cole are a part of our heritage. Just as our grandparents recount the stories of crowding around the radio to listen to Foster Hewitt’s play-by-play of the Maple Leafs, Canadians (not Canadiens) of our era will look back and remember Neale’s matter-of-fact analysis as the voice of our nation’s favorite sport.
