A look at a long-retired hockey rink announcer, after-the-jump …..
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I cannot recall where I heard a short audio clip … but as soon as I heard the voice: I was transported back to my mis-spent youth of the late 60’s and 1970’s.
If you ever watched a hockey game from Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto from the 60’s to the end of the 90’s (when the Toronto Maple Leafs moved to the new Air Canada Center) you heard the voice of the PA announcer Paul Morris— who (besides general announcements) would announce the goal scorer/assists/time, plus penalties assessed and also ... “Last minute of play in this period”.
Nowadays, whenever a goal is scored by the home team: not only are there air horns and strobe lights, but the announcer practically bellows-out the name of the goal scorer and assists. Things were different back several decades… yet none so much as Paul Morris: you would never know who was winning by the tenor of the voice. In a dictionary definition of the word phlegmatic: his photo could appear.
Below is an audio recording of some of his announcements — the biggest change he made: was to say both the first and last names of the players (instead of just last names, earlier in his career). If his voice sounds bland ….. you’re correct.
Yet at age eighty-three (and long-retired), as he was a sea of tranquility back then (and much moreso now) — I think he is worthy of a salute across-the-miles.
I came-of-age in a time when there were only six franchises in hockey (from 1942-1967) — although the monicker “The Original Six” isn’t accurate. Only the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens date back to the NHL founding in 1917. From the 1920’s to 1942, the league expanded and contracted regularly, with as many as ten teams in a given year — Boston, New York, Detroit and Chicago were simply the expansion teams of the 1920’s … who endured.
And so for hockey fans in Canada: Maple Leaf Gardens (and the Forum in Montreal) were the epicenters of Hockey Night in Canada. Especially outside Francophone Québec, Paul Morris was part of the soundtrack of Canadian life.
Born in 1938 in Toronto, he was the son of an electrician who began work at Maple Leaf Gardens when the venue opened in 1931. Paul Morris attended Ryerson University (at at time when it was named Ryerson Institute of Technology) to study electrical engineering and was asked by his father to work at the Gardens during the summer of 1958 to help move an organ from the now-closing Hippodrome Theater to the Gardens.
Morris eventually dropped out of school to become the assistant to the head sound technician Bob Wood, eventually assuming that role (drawing on his technical skills). In the early 60’s, the PA announcer was named Walter “Red” Barber (not the baseball announcer, of course) who was aging…. and disturbed both the team president and (then) executive vice president:
“(Prime Minister) Lester B. Pearson was dropping the puck,” Paul said. “I was standing behind the penalty bench where I used to jump in as timekeeper if someone was away and Stafford Smythe and Harold Ballard were sitting behind me. Then Red introduces ‘Lister Beer Person’. Just a slip of the tongue, but Stafford turned to Ballard and said: ‘Get rid of him’.” Barber finished that season, but no replacement was hired by early autumn.
Paul Morris took the job and went on to be the PA announcer for 1,585 consecutive games (never missing a Leafs game). Seasonally, he worked at the Gardens as much as seven days of the week (with wrestling shows, track meets and other main events):
“When the Beatles took the stage between 1964-66, it didn’t much matter. You couldn’t hear anything with the (girls) screaming. We only had basic speakers in those days, nothing meant for a rock and roll show.”
Even after assuming PA duties, Paul Morris remained involved in building matters. His father was concerned when the arena’s ancient scoreboard’s gears and minute hands began failing in 1964, and OK’d his son and Bob Wood to replace it.
Neither liked the proposed designs of companies offering replacements so they devised their own solid-state model, the first of its kind in the NHL, with early computer technology. When Wood became ill, Morris finished what became the ‘Dominion’ clock in 1966, incorporating penalties and visiting team names.
In his first few years behind the mike, Paul Morris saw a few championships for the Leafs, yet their last to-date came in the 1966-67 season, a sore point for many of its fans. Part of the reason: its owner Harold Ballard, who was tight-fisted and prejudiced, and hampered the organization up until his death in 1990. Amazingly, Morris stayed on the good side of Ballard for those years:
“Most of the time we got along, but he was very mercurial. You had to be very careful about what you said, as you never knew how he was going to take it.” Ballard came up with some controversial ideas for Morris to say or do, “but I usually tried to fudge around it.”
Yet whether the Leafs were winning or losing, you’d never know it from hearing Morris over the PA. He announced the visiting team’s goals with the same emotion (virtually none) as the home team’s. Morris often quoted from an old league document he kept around, that “announcers will refrain from personal comments.”
When the new Air Canada Centre (as it was then known) opened in the middle of the 1998-99 season, he was not offered a full-time job in the new building. Instead, he was offered only a $300/game stipend, which he finished the season on, then retired at the age of sixty-one. In a sense, he went out with Maple Leaf Gardens — which, like the old Forum in Montreal — has been re-purposed: today with a Loblaw’s supermarket, plus a Ryerson University fitness center and arena.
He seems an anachronism today, perhaps … yet whenever I hear an NBA or NHL public address announcer bark out, “And now………..” (with the lights dimmed) … I think back to Paul Morris … and a time and a place.
Let’s close with a Mike and the Mechanics song … that sums-it all-up.
Now, on to Top Comments:
From FindingMyVoice:
In the diary by SquireForYou about a conversation with a Virginia swing voter— I'd like to nominate chrismorgan's response on what motivated the R voters in Virginia … I agree wholeheartedly!
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Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful (and now eternal) *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment featuring that photo.
TOP PHOTOSNovember 3rd, 2021
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And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
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