1923–1931 onward · CFCA Toronto, then the General Motors Hockey Broadcast
Foster Hewitt, a telephone booth over the ice, and a country that learned to listen on Saturday
The most important thing on Canadian radio before the CBC existed was a hockey game, and it was carried by a newspaper. CFCA belonged to the Toronto Star; the first game went out in February 1923; Foster Hewitt worked from a glassed-in booth and gave the language a sentence it has never given back. When General Motors took the national sponsorship in 1931 the broadcast became the first genuinely coast-to-coast Canadian programme — assembled from private stations, paid for by a car company, years before there was a public network to carry it.
1 recording · Toronto and Montreal
Documentary assembly with archival play-by-play, tracing the CFCA broadcast of 1923 and the General Motors Hockey Broadcast from 1931. Recording held by the Internet Archive.
Undated
CFCA Toronto, then the General Motors Hockey Broadcast
50 min
The Hockey Broadcast, CFCA Toronto, then the General Motors Hockey Broadcast. Recording held by the Internet Archive;