Bob Cole, whose voice and lively language were the Saturday night soundtrack to hockey games over a broadcasting career that spanned more than half a century, has died.

Cole, who was 90, died Wednesday night in St. John’s surrounded by his family, his daughter, Megan Cole, said.

“Thank you for decades of love for his work, love of Newfoundland and love of hockey,” Megan Cole told CBC News on Thursday.

Cole said her father had been healthy “up until the very end.”

Cole’s trademark call — “Oh, baby!” — was one of many signposts he brought to play-by-play commentaries that earned him the love of fans and even players themselves.

Cole, who said he still got goosebumps in his mid-80s when he stepped into an arena broadcasting booth, called one of the most famous plays in Canadian sports history: Paul Henderson’s Summit Series goal in 1972, against the Soviet Union.

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    1•8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Bob Cole, whose voice and lively language were the Saturday night soundtrack to hockey games over a broadcasting career that spanned more than half a century, has died.

    Cole, who said he still got goosebumps in his mid-80s when he stepped into an arena broadcasting booth, called one of the most famous plays in Canadian sports history: Paul Henderson’s Summit Series goal in 1972, against the Soviet Union.

    “They’re going home,” he repeatedly said on Jan. 11, 1976, when Russia’s Red Army hockey team temporarily headed to the changing room during a heated match with the Philadelphia Flyers, then the reigning Stanley Cup champs.

    The incident occurred during the first period, when Flyers defenceman Ed Van Impe, who had just finished serving a penalty, delivered a hard check on Valeri Kharlamov.

    “It was a dream you would never imagine could happen — Foster Hewitt is talking to me about how he does, how he thinks about a hockey game,” Cole said in 2016 interview with CBC to promote Now I’m Catching On: My Life On and Off the Air, a memoir he wrote with sportswriter Stephen Brunt.

    Actor and producer Allan Hawco asked Cole to voice the recap intro heard at the beginning of most episodes of the series Republic of Doyle.

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