Bill Hewitt

W.A Bill Hewitt 1928 -1996As quoted from Foster Hewitt. “My son Bill was growing up and broadcasting was in his blood. At the age of 8 years he had shared a “Young Canada Night” and had described a portion of the hockey game; an experience that was annually repeated for the next several years, with my grandson Bruce following suit in his early years.” At Upper Canada College, Bill had captained both football and hockey school teams. He starred in many track and field competitions and set some pretty impressive records. Bill had developed a sound working knowledge and mastered the broadcasting technique. Intent on pursuing this career he served an apprenticeship at CFOS (Owen Sound) and CKBB (Barrie)” When television began Foster told the story for both radio and TV, but when the work load became too heavy, son Bill who had been radio broadcasting all sports for many years would take over radio broadcasting while Foster concentrated on television. Quoting Foster himself from his book “ His Own Story” Foster says. ”Incidentally, Bill’s voice and descriptive language was so similar to my own that many listeners detected no change in the switching.” After some changes to programming were made, Bill handled television broadcasts of Toronto Maple Leaf home games, while Foster radio-broadcast all Leaf’s away games for use on both CBL and CKFH; In addition Foster selected the Three Stars of all Leaf games both radio and TV. Bill Hewitt in conversation with Scott Young 1985. “I’ve sometimes thought about writing a book about my dad myself. I read books by people who can’t wait to tell about what jerks their famous parents were. Mine would be different- about how to grow up in the shadow of a famous father and love every minute of it. This kind of sentiment in a son for a famous father was rare. Rare because good and loving relationships between parents and children rarely make news. But Bill Hewitt who became famous in hockey alongside his father, remembers his childhood as a time of fondness and laughter. When Bill was six or seven years old he started to bug his dad to take him to the hockey games. “Dad would say,” “Well okay but I want you to do some things to earn it.” The jobs would be things a small boy could do around the house. His first experience with snow shovels, and cleaning “clinkers “out of the coal firebox , were connected to earning his way to a hockey game. Then at the game Bill would accompany Foster right into the Gondola and sit beside him much like Foster had sat beside his father in the Press boxes. “In those days you know, Bill said, we’d get up there about eight and broadcast would not begin till nine pm. One night dad said “You want to work?” I said sure, you bet and he said “okay well get down beside me here.” A microphone to me in those days was like a toy in front of me and I would begin to call the game in my squeaky voice. He’d correct me and tell me if I was repeating myself too often, tell me how to identify the different parts of the ice where the play would be, this corner, or that the blue line and center ice. Now this would be going out across the network, not broadcast, but just so that the engineers in the control rooms would know the score and what was happening before the 9:00pm broadcast actually aired. When it got to be about fifteen minutes before airtime dad would take over and start calling the game himself, so that when the broadcast actually did start he was all warmed up. He had always done this himself before each game but now he started me doing the first part of it.” In 1936, when Bill was eight ,during an annual “Young Canada Night” league game , so billed during Christmas to encourage seat holders to bring their kids along to the Gardens, Foster decided Bill was ready. He introduced Bill as his guest for “Young Canada Night” and let Bill call a few minutes of the game. In 1944 when Bill was sixteen, he and Foster got to talking about what Bill wanted to do in his life. ”Dad” he said “ I want to be a broadcaster, like you.” “ When I said that , father said ”Well the only way is you’ve got to get out in the smaller stations and learn from the ground up. When I feel that you’ve shown enough interest in what you’re doing, and convince me of that, I will try very hard to get a radio station that we can work at together. He did all the negotiating, and calling around. I was turned down at CHEX Peterborough, but then he got in touch with a man he knew, Gerry Bourke who had a station CJRL in Kenora. Gerry said “Sure send him up for the summer and he can go back, in time for school in September. When school ended, father actually went with me on the train all the way to Kenora, more than a 24 hour trip. He could have put me on the train and let it go at that, but he came with me. I can still remember pulling into Kenora about six in the morning and the mist was coming off Lake of the Woods and we’re walking down main street arm in arm talking about the place, about radio and my future. He showed how much he cared that I got started right. We had breakfast and then he took me over to CJRL and introduced me to everyone and I really started at the bottom alright, emptying garbage cans. Dad stayed around a day to make sure I had a place to live and then caught the train back. In September I came back, alone this time, and apparently he was proud of the report on me that he got back from Gerry Bourke. I went back to school and to sitting with him in the gondola every Saturday night working the play-by-play. Next summer the same thing. Only this time I went to work for Ralph Snelgrove at CFOS in Owen Sound. By this time I was seventeen or eighteen and finishing school. Eventually they made me the full time sports director at CFOS and for the next two years there I got a chance to do lacrosse, boat races, hockey, baseball , trotting races, everything that was going. That was my real baptism into other sports. I always did tapes for my dad and he’d listen, tell me this and that. In winter I still came down by bus every Saturday to be with him in the gondola and the next day he’d give me a drive to the bus, until finally a couple of years later , I moved to CKBB Barrie as sports director there and this was conveniently closer to home and our cottage in Beaverton. At this point he bought me a car, a 1932 Ford Roadster with a rumble seat.” On February 20th 1951, Foster opened operations of his brand new radio station, the night before CKFH began its broadcasting, with a big party in his new quarters on Grenville Street in Toronto, (also within walking distance of Maple Leaf Gardens) Gordon Sinclair noted that it was the only station in the country with the owners initials in the call letters. Everyone knew what FH stood for. Son Bill was the new station’s sports director. Bill did live broadcasts of everything that jumped, ran ,skated or could otherwise be called sport.
“It did feel a little strange, sitting beside Bill the first night he took over the television. I’d thought I was prepared for it. Bill said it felt strange to him too.”
Bill Hewitt knew that his chance to move into Hockey Night in Canada full time, depended on Foster. If Foster didn’t want to vacate the mike, nobody including Bill was going to push him away from it. His chance came when Foster opted to cover the World Championships at Krefeld in 1955.
As sports director at CKFH, Bill had been covering every sport in the city. Junior hockey was his specialty and he already knew many players in the NHL. He had been listening to and critiqued by the best so when he did his first simulcast in the spring of 1955, Bill’s style of broadcast, being honed all those years of being at Foster’s side could barely be distinguished from his famous father. On his return from Krefeld, Foster went back to the telecast for two more years. Then he officially turned the play-by-play over to Bill. For another year, Foster stayed on in television as colour commentator and also announced the THREE STARS at game’s end. He continued to do the road games on radio and from 1958 on, concentrated almost entirely on radio.
And time marched on. Things changed and the league expanded. Some liked the new way and many didn’t. Foster didn’t much like the way hockey was headed and criticized the lack of checking skills and the absence of the great lineup. He felt the quality of hockey was being diluted. “I hate looking back all the time because it is the worst sin you can commit, but imagine the having a trio of Primeau, Jackson, and Conacher today, or Mosienko and the two Bentleys, Boucher and the Cooks, or Lindsay, Abel and Howe. I can’t think of an outstanding lin4e in the NHL at present. And when there is one showing potential inevitably it gets broken up, a theory for the life of me I can not understand. Team play, which regrettably seems to be replaced with individual play, is nourished by stability and refined with familiarity. The intuitive pass, the almost magical setup. Requires that special sense which constant linemates acquire for each other. I never thought I would say this but I can’t name the lines on the Toronto Maple Leafs. They just don’t stay together long enough anymore.
Maple Leaf Gardens celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1981 with a special CJCL broadcast from the Gardens foyer. Foster and Bill were there to share in the celebrations. A few months earlier CKFH had been sold, but CKCL would be carrying the games on radio. In the first game of the exhibition hockey season, Bill then fifty-three, was calling the television play-by-play for Hamilton’s CHCH TV. Suddenly Bill became very ill and could not continue. In his entire career , back to when he was a small boy by Foster’s side he had never missed a single assignment. But he had been losing weight rapidly in previous weeks and was found to have a serious blood disorder. He lost fifty pounds before the weight loss could be stopped. Then he required many months of recuperation.
During that time Bill said, “ After being as active as I have for the past thirty odd years, you have a lot of time to think about what you’d like to do, what you are able to do, and what you should do.” Before making any decisions about his future, Bill wanted to hear what Foster thought. After all there had been a Hewitt, broadcasting hockey for nearly sixty years. Foster listened , asked questions, considered and then said,
“ Bill if you want to retire now, if you’ve had enough, then that’s fine by me.”
For years Bill had lived on a farm near Sunderland Ontario. After that talk with Foster, he retired “ to the things I enjoy most, my wife, my children and my farm.”
Bill Hewitt died of a heart attack on Christmas day 1996.
He has a son Bruce, and three daughters, Bonnie, Cassie and Erin.
He also has eight grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren.