Foster Hewitt

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Hewitt attended Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto where he was a member of the Toronto chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He was a champion boxer in his student years, winning the intercollegiate title at 112 pounds.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

Hewitt developed an early interest in the radio and as a teenager accompanied his father, W. A. Hewitt, on a trip to Detroit, Michigan, to see a demonstration of radio technology sponsored by General Electric.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

He took a job with Independent Telephone Company, which manufactured radios, and left that job and university when his father—the sports editor of the Toronto Daily Star—told him that the Star was going to start its own radio station. Hewitt became a reporter at the paper, and was ready to go on the air when CFCA was launched. CFCA's first hockey broadcast was on February 8, 1923, although it was colleague Norman Albert who performed the play-by-play.Kitchen, p.246 Hewitt's first broadcast likely was February 16, of a game between the Toronto Argonaut Rowing Club and the Kitchener Greenshirts. Hewitt recalled the date as being March 22 in his own book,Hewitt (1967), p. 25 although there was no game scheduled for that night at the Arena Gardens. Hewitt's book also mentioned his first broadcast as being of a game between Parkdale and Kitchener, and the Argonaut Club was based in Parkdale, a neighbourhood of Toronto. He also mentioned that game as going into overtime which the Argonaut-Kitchener game did.

On May 24, 1925, Hewitt and his father made what was said to be the world's first broadcast of a horse race.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

In 1927, he was invited as guest announcer to broadcast the first game from the new Detroit Olympia.{{Cite web |last=Krupa |first=Gregg |title=Wings take a page from Olympia with intimate feel at LCA |url=https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2017/10/04/wings-take-page-olympia-intimate-feel-lca/106283334/ |access-date=2024-01-02 |website=The Detroit News |language=en-US}}

Hewitt was part of the opening night ceremonies for Maple Leaf Gardens on November 12, 1931, and the specially designed broadcast "gondola" where Hewitt would broadcast from was brought into the plans with his input, and the blessings of then Toronto Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe.{{Cite web |title=Excerpt from The Lives of Conn Smythe |url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/215726/the-lives-of-conn-smythe-by-kelly-mcparland/9780771056840/excerpt |access-date=2024-01-02 |website=Penguin Random House Canada |language=English}}

For forty years, Hewitt was Canada's premier hockey play-by-play broadcaster for the General Motors (Canada), then later Imperial Oil Limited, Hockey Broadcast on Saturday nights. As the show was aired on Canadian national radio, Hewitt became notable for the phrase "He shoots, he scores!" as well as his sign-on at the beginning of each broadcast, "Hello, Canada, and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland."{{notetag|The Dominion of Newfoundland did not join Canadian Confederation until March 31, 1949. Newfoundland was a separate Dominion of the British Empire from 1907 to 1949.}}{{cite book|title=Now You Know Big Book of Sports|url=https://archive.org/details/nowyouknowbigboo0000lenn_j6r9|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/nowyouknowbigboo0000lenn_j6r9/page/18 18]|last=Lennox|first=Doug|year=2009|publisher=Dundurn|isbn=978-1-7707-0587-6}}

File:Foster-hewitt 0002.wmv.ogg

Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts from Toronto (aired on local station CFRB as well as successively CNR Radio, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, and ultimately CBC Radio) were simulcast on CBC Television from 1952 until 1963, with Hewitt handling the play-by-play until October 11, 1958, when he handed the duties over to his son, Bill Hewitt. In the process, he provided colour commentary of the Saturday night games after that, while continuing radio play-by-play of weeknight games. After 1963, Foster was solely on radio while Bill worked on television.{{Cite web |title=Hockey Night in Canada – The Television Years – The History of Canadian Broadcasting |url=https://broadcasting-history.ca/in-depth/sports-on-radio-tv/hockey-night-in-canada-the-television-years/ |access-date=2024-01-02 |language=en-CA}}

In 1951, he started his own radio station in Toronto, CKFH, initially at 1400 kHz, until moving to 1430 in 1959. The station carried Maple Leafs games until losing the rights in 1978. In 1981, the station was sold to Telemedia and was renamed CJCL. He made a bid at purchasing CHIN in 1970.{{cite news|last1=Kirby|first1=Blair|title=TELEVISION: Fisher, Hewitt in CHIN sweepstakes|work=The Globe and Mail|date=26 Aug 1970|page=12}}

File:Hewitt family tombstone.jpg]] Hewitt had retired from television in 1963, but he continued to broadcast Leafs games on radio until 1968. In 1965, he became one of a group of owners of the WHL Vancouver Canucks, a minor professional hockey team. The following year, he and co-owner Cyrus McLean made a presentation to the National Hockey League asking the league to award them an NHL franchise, but their bid was rejected.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

Hewitt came out of retirement to broadcast the 1972 Summit Series (with colour commentator Brian Conacher). Hewitt was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder in 1965. In 1972, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. The Foster Hewitt Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame is named after him, as is the media gondola at the nearby Scotiabank Arena. Hewitt's original gondola from Maple Leaf Gardens was dismantled, then dumped into an incinerator in August 1979 to make room for private boxes, under the MLG leadership of Harold Ballard.{{Cite web |last=Horner |first=Matt |title=A History of Harold Ballard's Villainy |url=http://www.fiveminutesforfighting.com/2012/09/a-history-of-harold-ballards-villainy.html |access-date=2024-01-18 |website=FiveMinutesForFighting}}{{Cite web |title=And You Thought YOUR Owner Was Bad!: The Twisted Tale of Harold Ballard |url=https://vocal.media/unbalanced/and-you-thought-your-owner-was-bad-the-twisted-tale-of-harold-ballard |access-date=2024-01-18 |website=Unbalanced |language=en}}

Foster Hewitt was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1989{{cite web|last1=Potts|first1=J. Lyman|title=Foster Hewitt|url=https://www.broadcasting-history.ca/personalities/hewitt-foster|website=History of Canadian Broadcasting|access-date=14 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190920060036/http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/personalities/hewitt-foster|archive-date=20 September 2019|url-status=dead}} and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.{{cite web |title=Foster Hewitt |url=http://oshof.ca/index.php/honoured-members/item/86-foster-hewitt |website=oshof.ca |publisher=Ontario Sports Hall of Fame |access-date=23 September 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141229012017/http://www.oshof.ca/index.php/honoured-members/item/86-foster-hewitt |archive-date=29 December 2014 |url-status=dead}}

He and his wife Elizabeth Kathleen How had a son, Bill Hewitt, and a daughter, Elizabeth Ann Somerville. Hewitt died from a combination of alzheimer's disease, kidney failure, and throat cancer on April 21, 1985, at the age of 82, at Providence Villa Nursing Home in Scarborough, Ontario.{{Cite news |date=23 April 1985 |title=Foster Hewitt is Dead at 82; 'Voice of Hockey' in Canada |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/23/sports/foster-hewitt-is-dead-at-82-voice-of-hockey-in-canada.html |newspaper=The New York Times |page=D27}}{{Cite web |last=Crawley |first=Janet |date=1985-04-23 |title=CANADA'S VOICE OF HOCKEY FOSTER HEWITT AT AGE 82 |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-04-23-8501240339-story.html |access-date=2023-08-07 |website=Chicago Tribune}}{{Cite web |last=Babad |first=Michael |title=Foster Hewitt, the voice of hockey in Canada, died... - UPI Archives |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/04/21/Foster-Hewitt-the-voice-of-hockey-in-Canada-died/2030482907600/ |access-date=2023-08-07 |website=UPI |language=en}}

A Canadian-style pub and grill restaurant was established in his name in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.{{cite web|title=Foster Hewitt's|url=https://www.englishintaiwan.com/food-and-drink/kaohsiung/foster-hewitts-sports-bar-kaohsiung|access-date=2016-07-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160917205145/https://www.englishintaiwan.com/food-and-drink/kaohsiung/foster-hewitts-sports-bar-kaohsiung|archive-date=2016-09-17|url-status=dead}}

• Notable families in the NHL

{{notefoot}}

• {{cite book | title=Down the ice; hockey contacts and reflections | first=Foster | last=Hewitt | publisher=Saunders | year=1934 }}
• {{cite book | title=He shoots, he scores! | first=Foster | last=Hewitt | publisher=Thomas Allen Ltd. | year=1949 }}
• {{cite book | title=Hello, Canada and hockey fans in the United States | first=Foster | last=Hewitt | publisher=T. Allen | year=1950}}
• {{cite book | title=Along Olympic road | first=Foster | last=Hewitt | publisher=Ryerson Press | year=1951}}
• {{cite book | title=Hockey night in Canada : the Maple Leafs' story | first=Foster | last=Hewitt | publisher=Ryerson Press | year=1953 }} Numerous reprints, {{ISBN|0-7700-0323-0}}
• {{cite book | title=Foster Hewitt, his own story | first=Foster | last=Hewitt | publisher=Ryerson Press | year=1967}}
• {{cite book |last=Kitchen |first=Paul |title=Win, Tie or Wrangle: The Inside Story of the Old Ottawa Senators - 1883–1935 |publisher=Penumbra Press |location=Manotick, Ontario |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-897323-46-5}}

;Notes

{{reflist}}

• {{icehockeystats|legendsm=B196501}}
• [http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/sports/hockey/foster-hewitt-voice-of-hockey/topic---foster-hewitt-voice-of-hockey.html CBC Digital Archives - The Voice of Hockey: Foster Hewitt]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20081014004908/http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=14272 Foster Hewitt, History by the Minute]

{{Hockey Night in Canada}}

{{Authority control}}

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{{succession box|before=Frank Selke Jr.|title=Canadian network television color commentator| years=1959-1960 (with Frank Selke Jr.; Hewitt called the games from Toronto in both years|after=Keith Dancy}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hewitt, Foster}}

Category:1902 births

Category:1985 deaths

Category:Burials at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto

Category:Canadian radio sportscasters

Category:Deaths from cancer in Ontario

Category:Deaths from throat cancer in Canada

Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in Canada

Category:Deaths from kidney failure in Canada

Category:Foster Hewitt Memorial Award winners

Category:Hewitt family

Category:Hockey Hall of Fame inductees

Category:Mass media people from Toronto

Category:National Hockey League broadcasters

Category:Officers of the Order of Canada

Category:Radio pioneers

Category:Toronto Maple Leafs announcers

Category:Upper Canada College alumni