Remembering Bob Cole as more than just the soundtrack of Saturday night

Year 1, Game 1. It was opening night of Hockey Night in Canada in the inaugural season of Sportsnet’s national broadcast deal and the email arrived with, “You’ll be the rinkside reporter in Tampa.”

“Oh, and Bob Cole will be on the call.”

How do you even respond to something that seemed so farfetched, it came across as downright absurd? That assignment for a reporter was the equivalent of asking a dancer to join Fred Astaire or an artiste to sit alongside Vincent van Gogh.

If you’re of a certain vintage, there’s not a voice more iconic or connected to sport in this country than Robert Cecil Cole’s. He did it all and everyone across Canada today will chronicle his calls and longevity. I imagine there will likely be an official day of mourning in Newfoundland, although it should be seen as a celebration.

When I heard the news of his passing today, I messaged my colleague and friend, Kyle Bukauskas: “I’m more just overjoyed we got a chance to waltz with the maestro.”

This was Bob Cole, the soundtrack of Saturday night. 

But there’s so much more that I’ll remember about Bob: how nobody could walk into a coach’s office or locker room and get the reverence and respect — and intel — that he could; how when we were in Chicago, just after Christmas, his daughter flew in from out West so that her dad wouldn’t be alone around the holidays; how on a snowy drive back to the hotel from Kanata after a morning skate, he told me that there wasn’t a better athlete than Brad Gushue in sport at the time — “other than Sid, of course,” he said.

There was no Mount Rushmore of athletes for Bob. There was Wayne, there was Sid, and there was Gushue. He loved the Oilers of the 1980s and being there for their run. That would come up from time-to-time, and every so often he’d talk about “Foster” only by first name. It was Foster Hewitt, of course, who did no wrong in Mr. Cole’s eyes. 

Bob did things his way, and it’s not that he was unapologetic about it, but he just knew no other way. He called it as he saw it, and not just from the booth. His game prep was simple. He’d show up to the rink and ask the head coach for their lines. He’d then come back to the hotel and write them out on small pieces of cardboard that his dry cleaner back in St. John’s used to help hang his dress shirts. And that was it. And God help you if you were one of the coaches who wouldn’t share which players would be on the same shift as Ovechkin or McDavid — the vocal disassembling Bob gave was an epic sight to behold.

He was ornery in such a bemusing way. One gameday morning, I was waiting to talk to then-Florida Panthers defenceman Brian Campbell for an in-game story. Bob had to wait for me, as I was his ride back to the hotel that day and he had a specific gameday routine, which included a nap. Campbell took a while getting off the ice and going through some treatment. Bob was agitated and began to pace. I could tell he was seething. 

Finally, Campbell showed up inside an empty visitors’ locker room. After his second answer, I began to ask a third question when Bob yelled, “Well, that’s enough of this, isn’t it?” As Bob stormed off, Campbell and I were in stitches.

Bob never wanted to be treated with reverence or be the show. Today’s hot-take world made him bristle. He was about the game, and the game only. “People care about the players and what’s happening on the ice, and that’s what we’re here for,” he told me one hot Arizona morning on our walk back from practice.

From time to time, I’d ask him for advice on certain mechanics of the trade and he’d present the answers in such basic ways. He once told me, “You can’t hit your max (volume) on a first period goal, because then what’s left for the overtime game-winner?”

Right, of course. Makes all the sense in the world. 

I’m not sure what Bob was like in his heyday, but in the twilight of his career, he wasn’t much for going out after games. Matter of fact, most nights I wouldn’t see him after the final horn. The game would end, and he’d disappear while I was down between the locker rooms doing interviews. 

But do this long enough and the little tidbits get revealed. I came to find out that Captain Morgan Dark was his drink of choice and he’d enjoy it in the room after the workday. One December, we were headed to Minnesota for a game when word came that Bob was going to receive the ‘Order of Canada.’ It meant the world to him, but far be it that anyone know such a thing or that he’d be the centre of attention. So, on behalf of the crew, we left him a bottle and a congratulatory note outside his hotel door. 

That night, after the game, there was Bob lurking beside the visitors’ equipment area. I beelined over to make sure all was good. Wasn’t like him at all to be down there.

“Room 716, my son,” he said with a grin. 

The equipment staff came out with three cans of Coke wrapped in a towel. Bob was heading to the hotel to celebrate and this time he wanted company to soak in a national recognition saved for the rarified few. He just didn’t want anyone to know about it, clandestine even in his personal moment to shine.

That was Bob, an absolute original. There will never be another quite like him.